


Reaching in the Dark

by Trainscribbler



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Case Fic, Drug Addict Spencer Reid, Eventual Romance, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Build, Slow Burn, at least for the first few chapters, because ultimately what Reid deserves is a happy ending right???, canon divergent after a point, canon level violence, fic starts pre-season 1, in the later chapters, probably eventual smut, while Gideon was on leave
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-07-27 08:43:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 84,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16215524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trainscribbler/pseuds/Trainscribbler
Summary: A kidnapped victim. The race to find her. The battle to keep hope alive while she is.Spencer Reid has never had the best interpersonal skills. But he's very good at his job. Early in his career with the BAU, when a woman is abducted and a livestream of her is plastered all over the Internet, he is determined to bring her home. Reid has yet to have had the privilege of bringing someone home alive. This one has to be the one who lives...Or,The one where Spencer saves a woman and then she saves him from himself in return.Warnings for violence, abuse, mental illness in the Unsub, substance abuse. Fic spans around  pre season 1 to season 5. Ish.I'm super bad at summaries, sorry! Edit: Tried to rework the summary, I don't think it helped. Gack. Honestly, how to condense a fic that's been rolling around in your head for years down into a teensy blurb? How do proper authors do this?! Please just come have a peek if you want Spencer warm and fuzzies/feels. I made this with love and caffeine.





	1. The Stream

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoy. Any comments/Kudos always super gratefully received. I also draw so if this fic is enjoyed there will probably be a piccy of Callie and Spencer at some point ^^

 

**_“There is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric....But he, who, not being inspired and having no touch of madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of art--he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere at all when he enters into rivalry with the madman.” - Plato_ **

 

* * *

 

 

_**April 17th, 2005** _

 

Technical analyst Penelope Garcia sat at her desk well after her shift should have ended, mindlessly chewing on the tip of a neon orange and pink pencil, flickers of green text reflecting off the lenses of her glasses as they unfurled across her screen. Most of the old paper files had now been catalogued digitally, dragging the BAU up firmly into the modern age. A personal project she’d taken to heart and earned no small amount of overtime for. That limited edition Pokemon Yellow Gameboy -would- be hers.

 

Cherry glossed lips parted in a slightly nostalgic smile as she watched the subroutines unfold and stash away the last thirty years of cases into neat lines of cascading script. The work hadn’t been hard necessarily, but monotonous. Still, she might miss these nights in the Fortress of Solitude, Natalie Merchant’s dulcet, bluesy tones sweeping over her head. Lines of 1s, 0s and backslashes were far less jolting than bloody murder photos, if she were to be given the luxury of choice of workload.

 

When this latest command concluded the pencil was parted from her teeth and the rubber tip used to tap the return button on the keyboard, then danced merrily across the buttons to enter the next layer of encrypting instructions, gaze cast downwards. She hummed along as Kind and Generous opened over her speakers, mentally noting she’d be well done before midnight, able to squeeze in a reasonable night’s sleep and impart to Hotch gleefully the following morning she was finally done. She’d crack that glowering face into a smile yet.

 

A ping interrupted Natalie’s tremulous vibrato to deliver the message that a new email had landed in the analyst’s inbox. Gaze lifting back to the screen, a quick twitch had the mouse zipping across to pop it open, one eyebrow arched as she saw the sensationalist contents from a fellow forum junkie. Some kind of viral video, probably fake but eerie as all Hell, maybe for a new horror movie? Remember The Blair Witch Project? Yaddah yaddah yaddah…

 

Garcia sighed, rolling her eyes. These boys were all the same. Probably the latest jumpscare rolling gif the ‘net had to offer. Those things were growing old fast.

 

A quick health check on the link proved there was nothing dangerous piggybacking it’s way in on it, and against her better judgement Garcia found herself clicking on it. Never could stand being out of the loop.

It took a moment to figure out exactly what she was seeing.

 

The screen was still green and grey, varying hues. An night vision camera had filmed this. There was a cone of brighter green, almost silver, a light petering down from somewhere. At the center of it was a crumpled figure on a wooden chair, head bowed, features obscured by tousled hair, facing square on to the camera lens. The legs were bare and arms pinned behind their back, stripped to a tank and bedshorts. Garcia felt her brows begin to pinch, body tensing as she waited for the inevitable spook that was sure to come, feeling her distaste climb. That was the problem with this found footage crap, it was too easy to forget it wasn’t real.  

 

Sound slowly began to pick up on the video, whispers at first, climbing in a gradual tremolo. Penelope sniffed and flicked the pause on her music, cracking up the bars on the feed to better hear what was going on. Probably a stupid move. The jump would likely be one of those pop up screaming ghouls. But curiosity was getting the better of her.

 

The sound was soft sobbing, a quivering, breathless trickle of anguish. Narrow shoulders were shaking and heaving, toes twisting inwards against the floor as though fear was seeping out of this person and right down into the earth. The viewing blonde’s frown deepened, nausea creeping up on her. This wasn’t right. This was going on too long for a looped scare vid.

 

A flash of white suddenly filled the screen, overwhelming the camera with it’s abrupt illumination and causing the pixels to crackle and distort into large blocks. Before they settled into something viewable an ear splitting scream came through the speakers and Garcia felt the anticipated terror crash over her. This wasn’t a cheap movie kind of terror though. This was a real, gut twisting, blood freezing, soul shaking kind of terror. The kind that only came from horrors that were far worse than anything Sam Raimi could imagine in their realness...

 

When the picture could finally catch up with the glaring change in lighting that had disrupted it and was displayed in clarity once more, what it revealed had Garcia bodily bolting back away from her desk as far as her chair wheels could carry her, a horrified disbelief pinning her eyes open to stare at her screen. It took almost five seconds before she finally managed to wrench her gaze away and threw herself on her phone, frantically dialling out, the screaming distorted as it came through her speakers and ricocheted off the walls of the tiny room.

 

* * *

 

 

_**April 18th 2005** _

 

The team was in the briefing room by 1.am. The clock was ticking and couldn’t be held back by things like the hope of sleep.

 

Garcia was pale faced and nauseous still as she waited for her cue. She’d woken Hotch and he’d gotten down to the bureau first, giving her time to privately show him what she’d been linked so he could steel himself before meeting the rest of the team.

 

The video feed was in fact live. When Hotch had arrived the woman on the screen had stopped screaming, having been driven beyond that point of pain and into vomiting instead, every second of it being captured for the world to see. If it had struck him when he saw it, he was very careful not to show it on his face. He’d taken Garcia’s shoulder and squeezed it as she tried to backhack and trace the origin of the video feed, only to find the signal was being pinged through more European VPNs than she could keep up with, rotating every few seconds. Impossible to isolate. Impossible to shut off.

 

Morgan had been second to arrive, replacing Hotch at Garcia’s shoulder. Eventually he peeled her away from her seat and got her out of the room, giving her a moment to breathe and cry silently into his shoulder.

 

JJ and Reid arrived last and together, and as they were all shuffled into the briefing room in their sleep deprived and half glazed state, Hotch found himself not for the first time bitterly regretting Jason Gideon was on enforced leave. This woman was still alive. Had Gideon been there, maybe there was more hope in somehow finding her that way.

 

He couldn’t afford to think like that now, though. Self doubt could unravel the last thread of hope left for this woman.

 

Garcia flinched when Reid dropped into a seat next to her, long fingers wiping down his face as he tried to bring himself to fully. He glanced over their tips at her, then offered her a hint of a sympathetic smile when his hand fell into his lap. They were all aware she’d stumbled across something that by all rights she should never be exposed to.

 

Hotch waited until they were all seated before he nodded at the analyst. She nodded obediently back to him and drew her laptop across the table towards herself, tapping a rapid succession of commands in that flipped the feed up onto the screen behind him. It was a still from the video, the still that had been emblazoned across her screen as she’d dialled desperately out for the team.

 

The woman in the chair was up there before them, her arms thrown wide to her sides, head tossed back in anguish as the restraints tied around her wrists spread her open, tearing at the sockets of her shoulders, muscle and sinew straining against dislocation. Her face was aglow in the inverted light of the infrared, the full extent of her pain and fear carved into her features. Her eyes were open, staring desperately into the cone of illumination, it’s source likely a bare bulb above her head. Behind her there was a wall of white, perhaps twelve feet of it visible before it went further and out of the camera shot. Splatters of black were tossed up it, layered like a Jackson Pollock, some semblance of symmetry and shape there, the whole thing having a disturbing precision of accuracy and ratio straight down the middle of the screen. As if she were being poised and posed in a way that was entirely deliberate.

 

The silence that hung over the briefing room was thick and cloying, sticking in throats and nostrils and making it difficult to breathe, all eyes on that horrible sight. Hotch was the one who finally broke it.

 

“She’s still alive. Show them.”

 

There was an enormous amount of control being mustered over Garcia’s hands when she touched her laptop again, everything she had going into refusing the allowance of trembling fingers. The image on the screen was collapsed into a smaller square at one corner of the screen and a second window opened, showing the live feed. The woman had been released from her restraints and the room where she was being held was darkened enough that only the faintest outline of the splatters behind her were visible. Dark rivulets of something were running down her legs in narrow streams, pooling around her toes. She wasn’t crying anymore, but her breathing was shallow and laboured, head bowed and bangs obscuring her face.

 

“That was her blood.” It was Reid who had spoken and it wasn’t a question. He was frowning at the screen, brows pulled in tight together, something spiralling rapidly in his mind as he studied the images before them. Hotch nodded and turned his gaze up to the screen once more.

 

“Garcia was able to run her through the system by pulling some stills.”

 

A third window popped up as if on cue, Penelope still tapping away. This photograph was a world away from the woman in the video. The face that looked down at them was smiling and almost serene. Pixieish features were framed by loose waves of silvery blonde hair and bangs. Large blue eyes stared out from beneath the pale fringe with a questioning that pierced through the apparently relaxed nature of the photograph. She was sat on a wall, one hand running into her hair, the unmistakable silhouette of Brooklyn Bridge behind her. She was slightly built, reclining back with the other hand on the wall, one leg hooked over the other, long printed skirt being fluttered by a breeze. It was a candid photo, one that had been snatched almost as if someone had called her name, in no way alluding to the suffering that was now being endured .

 

“Callie Masterson.” Hotch’s voice permeated through the study of the photograph. “Twenty two, five foot one, one hundred and eight pounds. She was reported missing eleven days ago by her mother. She runs an art gallery out of Upper East Side and when it hadn’t opened for three days her mother reported the matter to the local police.”

 

“Has she seen this?” Morgan asked, leaning forwards in his seat, elbows resting on the tabletop. “Tell me hasn’t seen this.”

 

“She’s aware some images have arisen of her daughter but we’ve been vague about exactly where or how,” JJ answered and shook her head as she spoke, the empathy she was feeling for the unfortunate woman drawn in clear lines across her face.

 

“Have there been any ransom demands? Notes or phone calls? What about on the video, have we seen anything of who’s holding her, have they said anything?” Reid’s questions came off in quick succession and Hotch shook his head in response, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

 

“Nothing to suggest this is financially motivated. Her mother went to her studio and there was no sign of any struggle, no demands left. It was as if she just vanished.”

 

“It’s not really surprising, look at the way she’s being presented.” Reid gestured a hand towards the screen, the slackened figure on the chair by now having lifted her head, eyes glinting as they caught what little light was available and threw it back out into the camera’s sensitive lens, giving the impression she was staring off into some very far place. “The camera angle is tilted upward towards her, lifting her into a position of authority. She’s perfectly centered. Sh- she’s in a literal spotlight. This isn’t a threat. This is a victory. They’re showing her off.”

 

There was another too long moment of silent as this was absorbed. Reid was still staring at the screen, unblinking, every millisecond of what was being streamed vital to him. The bloodied figure took a shuddery breath that seemed deafening in the quiet of the briefing room.

 

“This woman is still alive…” Hotch was the one to speak again, his voice barely above a whisper.

 

“Eleven days, that’s almost unheard of in cases of sexual sadism. Whoever has her, this- this is an extravagant level of care being taken in the way she’s being shown. Why show her to the world if you’ve taken her for your own personal satisfactions? Her abducter’s not been seen on the screen, so it’s not a case of stating their physical prowess. This doesn’t strike me as a snuff film. Has he really not been seen, what’s the poin-”

 

“Reid.” Hotch interrupted, his exhausted face set into an authoritative but not unkind frown. “She’s still alive. Like you say, almost unheard of…”

 

“We can still find her…” Morgan murmured, catching onto the train of thought.

 

“We are going to New York. We’re going to find her and we’re going to scrub this-” Hotch paused, seeming to need a moment to catch himself as he glanced back up at the video feed, the woman before them all wringing her hands together in her lap and touching her toes together, seeming to try and compose herself as best she could while her own blood clotted on her skin. “ _This_ off the face of the earth…”

 

“They’re already prepping the jet, I told the mother we’d be there before sun-up.” JJ was already getting to her feet, her face undoubtedly tired but set with determination as she gathered her files.

 

“Wheels up in thirty,” Hotch agreed and was moving out of the room, Morgan not far behind him, until Garcia and Reid were the last ones left. Reid was still staring up at the screen, something ticking over as Garcia breathed gently,

 

“Can I please shut this off now..?” trying to jolt his focus.

 

“He’s gazing up at her…” was the murmured reply, her words clearly having fallen on deaf ears. Garcia frowned and a moment later the screen on the wall went blank, bringing her companion’s mind back into the room with her. Reid glanced over at her, ran fingers through his hair to sweep it out of his eyes, then was getting to his feet and hitching up his bag, saying as he did,

 

“Could you uh- could you link that to my PDA? I need to monitor her on the flight.”

 

“Sure thing… I’ll be here when you land, with coffee and a sincere wish to never shut my eyes again, so feel free to make use of me, I don’t think I’ll be sleeping for the foreseeable future,” Garcia replied, gathering up her laptop.

 

“Thanks.” Reid nodded and turned to jog after the rest of the team, but his thoughts were somewhere far above already and sailing towards New York city. She was alive. She was alive and she was being gazed up at…


	2. The Gallery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer gets his first insights into the woman whose been taken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos always very gratefully received! They let me know whether I should continue a fic :)

Darkness stuck to everything. Callie Masterson had always thought the dark was soft and sort of warm, an enveloping blanket that lulled you from this mortal plane to one where the mind was allowed to open to its infinite possibilities through dreaming. Darkness had never frightened her before even as a child. Darkness was a portal to beauty unbound by conventional thinking. 

 

Not now though. Not this darkness. This darkness stuck to her. Infected her. Poured down her esophagus and into her lungs, coating everything inside. This darkness permeated pores and got into her cells. There was no light anymore. No beauty to be found here.

 

Sometimes her other senses tried to comfort her. Time had lost all meaning and that could have been enough to induce madness on it’s own, but the utter darkness was close to finishing her off. So her mind tried to give her gifts to keep itself whole. Familiar smells. Pine turps. Wax. Flaxseed oil. Things being called up from deep in her memories. Smells of home. Her father had always told her that the sense of the smell was the one that most starkly enabled the power of recall. A single, fleeting scent could suddenly have her four years old again and stood in her parent’s kitchen, giggling as daddy cleaned smears of green and purple paint off her face.

 

_ “What am I going to do with you, hm?” _

 

Daddy. Daddy who’d been there at six years old but not at seven. 

 

Would he be waiting for her? Could he see her now? 

 

She found herself praying, to whatever Gods might be out there somewhere, that her soul would be lifted from her body before the killing blow came. Like the Little Matchgirl. She’d walk out of her body and into the light with her daddy without having to feel the rest of the pain...

 

The only time the darkness broke was when he came. She knew it was a he. She could tell by the weight of his breathing and the shuffling of heavy footsteps. The way he groaned over her... 

 

The bulb over her head would pop into existence and everything would burn her vision, shooting pains going through her head, the dirty light too much after so much blackness. 

 

She flinched when it went on this time, hating herself for gasping. Instinctively she pulled into herself, stomach coiling in tight, legs drawing up as far as they could in her chair, her chest aching from the way her hands were tied behind it’s wooden back. The wounds carved into her shoulderblades burned white hot and she felt unfinished clots tear and blood seep free again, soaked up by her tank top. 

 

“Latria mu…”

 

The voice came from behind her and she bodily shuddered, totally involuntarily, nausea rolling up through her. There was rustling. Plastic. Tarp? Canvas maybe. Something. The voice had been muffled. 

 

“I need you…”

 

English this time. Oh God. Stop him. Stop him, stop stop stop…

 

Bloodshot eyes peered out from behind the dirty bangs of her hair and landed on the camera propped on the floor before her. The red light was blinking. She’d realised it was there on maybe the second day? Though maybe it’d been the second hour… 

 

The cable from it ran to a laptop, stood on a table cluttered with filthy jars, just able to pick them out by the low glow of it’s screen. A Mac? Fuck this guy. 

 

She was being watched, that much she was sure of by now. 

 

She didn’t fight as she felt her wrists being looped by something. Not rope. Softer. Silk? One set of restraints exchanged for another. 

 

As she was dragged to her feet like a marionette being held on strings her mind flickered to something her mother had said to her once, something to comfort her after her father’s funeral. 

 

_ “We were born a child of light’s wonderful secret. We return to the beauty we’ve always been…” _

 

She hadn’t understood it then, but it’d settled her still. Now she understood. If she died now, it could only be a good thing. She’d be granted peace as part of the universe’s greater spirituality once more. Return to star stuff.

 

Being guided to stand on the chair, the He pulled her arms up higher over her head, stretched to full capacity and she found herself forced to stay like that, her hands hooked over something high above her, strung up like a pig in a pokehouse. Her toes were still on the wooden seat, all her weight poised through them. He left her like that and shuffled away, hunched over the laptop. It’s light revealed he was covered head to toe in a plastic suit, the sort you’d see exterminators use for bug bombing, a paper mask over the lower half of his face. It crackled as he moved and she hated that sound so much. So, so much. 

 

A pair of goggles propped up on his forehead. Heavy. Military? Oh shit… 

 

He was focused on something, fingers in their latex gloves hammering heavily against the keys, slow, plodding, methorical. There was a plan here. 

 

Bloodshot eyes shot back to the camera. Stared right down that lens, focused everything on it.

 

_ Look at me, you bastards. Look at me. Look me in the eye. You can see me. You’re watching him do this. _

 

As footsteps started back towards her and the breathing grew louder and thicker she felt hot tears slip down her face, tracking burning trails over her skin, her mouth forming a silent plea to her audience.

 

_ Help me… _

* * *

  
  


Reid sat with one knee crossed over the other as the jet began its descent into JFK, fingertips of his right hand pressed to his lips, face scrunched up in thought. His foot twitched slightly, other hand clutching his PDA, gaze unblinking as he watched the screen. Callie wasn’t alone in the picture anymore. The Unsub was growing bolder. Still hidden by his choice in attire, but now in shot with her. Manipulating her. 

 

He’d said something. Reid scowled, unable to make it out. He fired a quick email to Garcia, asking her to go back over the last thirty seconds and clean up the sound when she could. Then he’d returned his attention to the livestream, vaguely aware of JJ giving the briefing opposite him;

 

“...her mother is going to meet us down at her gallery. We’ve asked she bring childhood photographs as well as recent ones, she’s going to be making an appeal to the media at seven this morning. We’re going to try and humanize this girl as much as we can now…”

 

Reid felt his stomach pitch when the girl on the screen looked right into the camera, JJ’s words fading out again. She was staring right at him, making eye contact. 

 

_ Help me. _

 

“We have to shut this down.”

 

He wasn’t even aware he’d interrupted JJ. The rest of the team fell quiet, the only sound the hum of the jet’s engine as it circled them down towards the runway. 

 

“We have to shut this down,” Reid said against his time looking up from the screen for a split second in an appeal to his colleagues, then back down to the video feed, his chest tightening as he saw the figure behind Callie beginning to draw her hair back away from her face and over her shoulders to better present her features to the world. 

 

“Garcia is doing her best…” Hotch reminded him gently. Reid gave a vehement shake of his head.

 

“This is about displaying her. He shouldn’t be allowed to do that. If people aren’t able to watch this, maybe he’ll slow down…”

 

“Or kill her.” It was Morgan who said what everyone else was thinking.

 

Nobody said anything else until they touched tarmac and filed out of the plane into waiting SUVs provided by the local PD. Hotch and JJ went in the first with a Detective Hanover, Reid and Morgan in the second with Sergeant Mills. 

 

In the back of the car Morgan laid a hand on Reid’s shoulder and squeezed it twice. On the second he looked up from the screen and over at his friend, a twitch in his jaw as he said very softly,

 

“He’s cutting off her clothes…”

 

“That’s gotta go when we get to her mom, kid, okay?” was Morgan’s reply, carefully measured to contain the revulsion he felt at this new piece of information. Reid nodded and glanced back down at the device, then called Garcia to ensure she still had her own feed going. Someone had to keep watching this woman, however abhorrent it was. If they took eyes off her that could be the moment he killed her, as if somehow he would know…

 

The gallery when they arrived was relatively small, a store on one of Upper East Side’s buttery coloured streets, all glass fronts and hardwood floors. They were greeted by another detective, Bianchi, and guided inside. One by one the team filed in and were brought to a leather chez longue set up in the centre of the space where a woman in her early fifties sat, greying hair pinned away from her face in a loose bun, thin shoulders covered by a crochet shawl in blues and purples. It was clear from her features she was Callie’s mother, even before introductions to Ruth Masterson were made. She let out a relieved sob when JJ introduced herself, a sound that came from the fact this voice that had promised her on the phone they were coming to find her daughter had now materialised. She cried harder still when going through Callie’s childhood photographs with her. 

 

Spencer didn’t sit with the others. He nodded with that terse, polite smile he’d practiced for meeting bereaved families since starting this job, didn’t shake hands with her and swallowed the temptation to tell her he’d seen for himself her daughter was alive. That’s why JJ was there. She did the talking. 

 

Not being able to watch the stream was burning him up. All logic made it clear there was absolutely no difference to Callie’s safety whether he was able to view it or not, but shutting off the PDA before he’d gotten out of the car had felt like abandoning her. She was already being dehumanised by whoever had her. Simply flicking a switch off her suffering was doing that as well, wasn’t it?

 

Hands in pockets to keep himself from touching anything with nervous fingers, he drifted slightly away from the pack as he listened to his colleagues question Ruth about her daughter, trying to fill in any holes they could on why she was the one, out of all the millions in this city, that was taken. They were told she was warm and pleasant, but not overly outgoing, often retreating to her studio for days at a time. Studio. Reid made a mental note as he listened that should be the next place to look over.

 

He wandered a little further, beginning to peer at the canvases hung on the walls as he moved, letting the voices wash around him. 

 

Callie had never been in trouble. No boyfriends or girlfriends that her mother knew of. Their relationship was good. Her gallery was doing reasonably well, as well as one could amongst the rabid competition of every other burgeoning artist in New York City. 

 

Hazel eyes studied the canvas nearest to him, fingers flexing in his pockets. It was maybe a metre high and filled with washes of blues and greys that had been layered over and over to gradually build the image of a woman’ face, emerging as if peeking from behind a bush. The strokes were soft and languid until it came to the eyes. These stared out, clear and shining, silent laughter in them. They were Callie’s eyes. It was a self portrait, hidden in the guise of some ephemeral spirit that seemed to rise out of the canvas itself. 

 

She’d been happy. Mentally healthy. The portrait told him that well enough. 

 

He moved along to the next painting, this one seemingly a sister to the first. This time eyes peered back over her shoulder, being born out of pale yellows and peaches, hair swept away from her face by some breeze captured in the moment. She was barely there and yet she absolutely held all focus in that gaze. It was like being pulled in, some invisible thread behind the sternum drawing you forwards. 

 

Gradually Reid turned on his heel, letting his eyes sweep over all the paintings in the room. More self portraits, eliciting bodiless laughter and music, Callie’s gaze in every one, puckish and challenging the beholder to follow her.

 

The last wall was different.

 

These were drawings. Smaller. Rendered in ink and charcoal. 

 

He stepped over to them, frowning. Life studies. Grey scale and the marks infinitely different, not only from the portraits of Callie but from one another. Below each drawing of the life model there was a small notation in various styles of handwriting. 2 minutes. 8 minutes. 11 minutes. 

 

“Your daughter didn’t draw these.”

 

Reid didn’t realise he had interrupted. The group pitched up in the centre of the gallery looked up at him where he was stood almost nose to nose with the life studies, hands curling into fists in his pant pockets as he felt the flicker of an idea forming. He looked back at the girl’s mother, sat clinging to JJ’s hands. She sniffed and shook her head, her voice cracking when she spoke;

 

“No, she uh- those are her students’. She buys some of their work to resell here, tries to give them a foot up when she can…”

 

It was a pure lightbulb moment. The kind you see in cartoons when one pops up over Tom’s head right before he thinks he finally has Jerry screwed to the wall.

 

Spencer span away from the drawings, hands snatched from his pockets to gesticulate rapidly as he spoke.

 

“We’re going to need lists of every student she’s taught, as far back as we can. Those drawings too. All of them. Does she have any others?”

 

“Uh, maybe at her studio…” Ruth was beginning to tear up again. “You think one of them took her? My God, she- she let them into her home…”

 

“We’re just exploring every possibility, Mrs Masterson. The slightest thing could be the turning point for finding your daughter…” JJ said softly and rubbed her shoulder, then pointed to the photographs clutched in her hands. “Think of her. Focus on her. She needs you to be strong for her right now, more than anything else.”

 

The older woman nodded, fingers curling possessively around the photos. Spencer meanwhile found his focus had slipped back to the life drawings, studying them without blinking, another puzzle piece slotting into place as the image of the girl being cut out of her clothing assaulted his train of thought. He spoke almost on auto-pilot, his mouth not really able to keep up with the speed of his mind as he murmured,

 

“Mrs Masterson, do you know who modelled for these teaching sessions?”

 

There was a soft hiccough of a sob before he got the answer;

 

“Callie did.”


	3. The Drawing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos very gratefully received, thank you for those of you that have already stopped by :) Please let me know if you like this so far and want me to continue!

At some point she’d lost consciousness. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly when. Maybe when he’d started digging fingers into her wounds. Yeah. That was probably it. 

 

She opened eyes to find herself sprawled out on the floor, staring up into the blackness. She could feel something draped over her body. Light, slippery, almost a second skin. 

 

Could she possibly hurt more than this? Surely this had to be pain’s peak, and all other sensation after that would be nought. 

 

Callie coughed, fighting back nausea. Waves of dizziness rolled over her when she tried to turn her head. She managed to shift just enough to have her eyes land on the fuzzy dot of red light that told her the camera was still on. 

 

Wonder if people were paying to watch this… 

 

A new scent flooded her senses. Something that hadn’t been there before. Something heady and sweet. Strong. 

 

Her right arm reached out blindly to her side, grappling across the floor, trying to get her bearings. Concrete beneath her. 

 

Fingertips landed on something smooth and cool. Tapped around it a little and felt the curve of its shape. Pushed and it wobbled. Then her fingers were wet. 

 

She pictured her mother’s face as she forced herself to roll over onto her front, biting back a scream as she felt new wounds tear open in her legs when she shifted. Her mother. The strongest woman she knew. They shared the same blood. 

 

Dragging herself through her forearms in a belly crawl, she shuffled the inches through the dark until she reached the bowl, fingers curled around the rim of it and dipped into its contents to draw it closer. The sweet odour was coming from it. It was familiar. There was a memory here too. Breakfast. Pancakes sizzling on the grill, mom flipping them, watching as an eleven year old Callie sat in the kitchen window and sketched robins out in the garden, frost hazing the glass. 

 

She didn’t think twice about putting her fingers in her mouth to suck on them, having no idea when she’d last had water, but knowing her lips were chapped and split from dehydration. A saccharine taste flooded her senses and she almost laughed before she tugged the bowl against her mouth and swallowed as quickly as she could, gulping down the milk and honey before it was confiscated.

 

* * *

 

 

_**April 18th 2015. 11.08 am** _

 

The studio was in a loft apartment a couple of blocks outside of Harlem. Fourteenth floor of the building, a huge, airy room that served as bedroom, den, kitchen and workspace all rolled into one. 

 

Reid and Morgan were escorted there by Bianchi, the rest of the team gone back to the PD to liaise further with the officers and pick through the limited evidence they had. There were crime scene tapes crossed over the door that he cut through to allow them in, holding the door open for them.

 

Reid had almost expected chaos, though they already knew there’d been no signs of struggle. In fact the apartment was in relative order. The bed was made, silver silk sheets carefully tucked in the corners. There was clean crockery on the draining board at the sink, long since washed but with no-one to replace it to it’s home. There was no couch but there were printed cushions and beanbags with ethnic motifs arranged in a pile by the sprawling window and a coffee cup still stood on it’s sill. 

 

“She sits there in the morning, while she has breakfast…” Reid murmured as he stared at the cup, thinking aloud. 

 

“Reid.”

 

Morgan snapped him back to the present, shaking him from the mental image he was building of Callie Masterson curled up by the window sill, legs beneath her as she nursed her coffee and watched the sun rise over the New York skyline. He was stood at a large table to the left side of the room. The top of it stained with paint flecks and littered with glass jars, paint pots, brushes… There was an easel stood beside it, a canvas propped on the wooden frame. The beginnings of a few ghostly lines of sketch were laid down on it’s white facade. Callie’s face, eyes watching these invaders in her home. 

 

Morgan ducked under the table and drew out a large leather folder with a handle, a good A1 size carrier. Pushing the jars and pots back on the table, he laid it flat on the surface and unzipped it, then flipped it open to reveal a pile of life drawings. There must have been over a hundred.

 

“Damn…” he murmured, before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of latex gloves, Reid doing the same. 

 

“He’s in here somewhere. He’s placed her on display in triumph, so he’s likely been coveting her a long time…” the doctor breathed and reached in to start sifting through the top few pages, feeling starkly as if he were violating Callie himself by turning over drawing after drawing of her unclothed form. 

 

“Why would she do this in the first place? I mean, I’m not saying it’s her fault, but surely it’s an invitation to trouble…” Morgan muttered, helping himself to a pile of the papers to flick through himself, eyes scanning them to see if something leapt out. 

 

“Actually in the artistic community there’s a very strict code of practice and ethics when it comes to life modelling. There’s even a union register that models can be placed on to ensure fair treatment and pay, as well as to make any complaints should they feel a customer’s conduct is inappropriate. She should have been perfectly safe. She certainly had the right to be…”

 

“Yeah, but-”

 

“Life drawing isn’t about sexualising the human form. Quite the opposite. It’s about viewing it objectively. Understanding the anatomy and structure but also the way light hits it, the texture of skin and hair, the micro-expressions in a person’s face that elicit emotional responses in others. Did you know that the Golden Ration is present all over a human body? It’s a specific number that’s said to form all the most beautiful things in the universe, artists use it all the time. Da Vinci was obsessed with it. And the human body has it occurring naturally, over and over. Skull to the base of the spine is a perfect two thirds to an individual’s hip to floor measurement. Eyes are a perfect third down from crown, the mouth a perfect two thirds. Fingers splayed will create the curve of a numerically perfect circle. Callie was just looking to express the beauty in a human body any way she could and trying to help others do the same… That’s why she paints self portraits. It’s not vanity. It’s because she’s grateful for what she has...” 

 

Morgan was frowning as Reid spoke, watching him. He let out a soft sigh when he trailed off and shook his head, saying quietly,

 

“I’m not blaming her. I’m just trying to understand how she got to the point she is now, Reid, same as you…”

 

Reid frowned but didn’t look up as he spoke. Instead his gaze was fixed on the pages spread on the table, fingers resting on one in particular. 

 

“I think I might have an idea of how…”

 

* * *

 

 

**_April 18th 2005. 12:32 pm_ **

 

The team had gathered the local precinct into their briefing room, all eyes turned on Hotch as he delivered the initial profile to the police force, the drawing Reid and Morgan had discovered stuck on the whiteboard behind them for everyone to see, along with some of the childhood photographs Callie’s mother had brought for JJ.

 

“The suspect is between twenty five and thirty five years of age. He is a white male and works a physical job, most likely in some form of industrial cleaning, based on the clothing he is wearing in the video feed. He’s between five foot ten and six foot. This guy will have a record. Stalking, domestic assault, rape, something that put him in the system… He may be charismatic but lacking in intelligence. His moods will turn on a dime. The victim knows him. We believe he’s frequented both her place of work and her home. Whoever he is, she let him in. We believe he may have taken art classes with her, but not for long…”

 

At this Hotch paused, steeled his jaw, and pointed back at the drawing on the board. 

 

The drawing was of a woman, but it took some study to realise that. The marks were haphazard and jagged, layers scribbled over and over one another to conjure a clumsy female shape. The only part that had any clarity was the face. That had been rendered almost softly, technically without skill but turned to with an almost reverent hand in it’s stylized features. However, it quickly dissolved after that into mashes of furious scratched pencil that in parts had punctured the paper. Spencer swallowed as he stared up at the drawing, before he continued the profile;

 

“We've been unable to lift any clear prints from the paper. Most artists sign their work. The Unsub did not. This was a message to Callie Masterson. ‘I love you and I hate you.’ He harbours a deep obsession over her and he may feel that both her paintings and her modelling are taunting him. He has likely been rejected recently. There will have been a stressor that tipped him from simply drawing his fantasies and into acting on them. Personal, professional. Callie may even have turned him down herself. This is a very sick individual and in the end he will destroy the object of his obsession to be free of it…”

 

“We believe Callie knew something was wrong, too. She kept this drawing for a reason. A signpost, should something happen to her. Someone else will know who drew this. We want you all to take copies and interview every student she’s taken in the last year, every client whose bought or commissioned work, everyone she’s had any record of meeting with. You’ve all been provided with her records. Someone knows this guy and Callie’s time is running out.” Hotch spoke with a command that Spencer found he couldn’t at that point. His throat was thick with a lump of concrete as he stared unblinking up at the drawing, mind falling back to the image of the woman being hauled to her feet, tips of her hair stained with her own blood as her captor rearranged it.

 

_ Help me…. _

 

He was missing something. They were all missing something. A piece of the puzzle. He could feel it flickering around the edge of his mind, almost there but not quite, trying to tell him something…

 

Once they were dismissed he headed back to the breakout area and tugged his PDA from his pocket, loading up the stream. He felt sick when he saw Callie laying on her side close to the camera, close enough that he could see tears shining on her face. She wasn’t naked anymore, but was wrapped in some sheer fabric, wound around her body in folds, clear dark marks from where she’d been bleeding staining them. Her eyes were open but far away. 

 

His free hand tugged his phone from his pant’s pocket and dialled Garcia, her usual springy greeting replaced with something more sombre as she recognised his number.

 

“Hey, sweetness… Any news?”

 

“We uh… we just delivered the profile. What’s been going on..?”

 

“He’s not there with her right now that I can tell. She- she slept a little while and I think he left her something to eat…”

 

“He fed her..?” Spencer felt the flicker around the periphery of his mind grow a little brighter at this.

 

“Yeah. She got her hands on something, the bowl off by her elbow there. He left it for her before he shut the lights off,” Garcia relied and Reid could practically hear her nose crinkling in thought. 

 

“He’s caring for her…”

 

Callie blinked slowly, and when her eyes opened there was such a look of hopelessness in them he wanted to climb right through the screen and pull her back with him.

 

“There was something else. I cleaned up that soundbite you asked for.” Garcia’s voice sounded tinny and far away, Reid’s focus pinned on the crumpled woman on the screen as he murmured on autopilot,

 

“What was it?”

 

A male voice came over the phone, slightly distorted but his words absolutely discernible.

 

_ “Latria mu.” _

 

“Sounds like Latin or something, huh?”

 

Reid's fingers had blanched on his phone, the flicker now turning into a bright flare, glowing right at the base of his skull.

 

“It’s Greek. It means ‘my adored’. It-it’s often frowned on as a term of endearment, it’s considered extremely possessive when used colloquially…”

 

Callie’s eyes slid closed on the screen and Reid shook it as if somehow that might rouse her. 

 

“So our guy’s Greek, then?” Garcia was beginning to sound excited, the hope that a new lead and a closing net brought to all the BAU’s voices audible in hers. 

 

“No…” Spencer replied softly. The profile was wrong. They’d missed this. This wasn’t a sexual fantasy. The profile was wrong. “But he believes she is…”


	4. The Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one day. Wowzer, this one really has me going strong! I hope that people are enjoying it. Please let me know if you are!

 

**_April 18th 2005. 12:49pm._ **

 

“Garcia, I- I need you to send me a copy of Callie’s driving license or birth certificate or something- anything- anything government issued with her full name on it.” 

Reid was panting slightly as he stood, his heart beginning to beat faster in his chest as the thought that was now a flare of light in his cerebral cortex burned brighter and brighter still, fingers gripping the PDA tight enough to blanch knuckles. 

 

“Uh- okay, one second. I’m just forwarding that over to you now. You got it?” There were a couple of clicks of the keyboard down the end of the phone and then the device in Reid’s hand flashed to alert him of incoming mail. It almost killed him to minimise the livestream so he could read it, but a few seconds later his thumb swiped the driving license with Callie’s face pictured on it up on his screen. A lightning fast scan of the details on it confirmed his suspicions and he forgot to say goodbye to Garcia before hanging up on her, bolting at breakneck speed back down to the briefing room where Hotch and JJ were still milling around, talking in hushed voices.

 

“We were wrong!” he blurted, causing both other agents to look back at him with startled expressions. He held the PDA out towards them, showing them the screen as he said again,

 

“We were wrong. Look at her. This isn’t about- about stalking her, not in the sense we presumed. He’s not in love with her. He worships her. This is a veneration, in his mind anyway!”

 

“Reid, slow down. What are we looking at here..?” Hotch breathed evenly, holding both palms out towards the young doctor in a stilling gesture before moving to take the electronic device from him.

 

“Look at her name. Look at it. It’s not Callie, that’s just a nickname. It’s Calliope Masterson. Calliope!”

 

Reid huffed in frustration at the questioning frown this earned him from his superior, shaking his head and ploughing on in rapid tones that had almost a pleading for him to understand running beneath them.

 

“Calliope was the greatest of all muses, the- the head of nine lesser goddesses in Greek mythology responsible for inspiring artists, musicians, poets, all the higher arts. The muses were said to be almost impossible to invoke and lore had it that if you were lucky enough to summon one you could- you could capture it, enslave it to do your bidding. He doesn’t think she’s a person, he thinks she’s some spirit of inspiration that he’s taken for his own and now he’s using her to create his masterpiece! T-to him, it’s all one and the same, her, her paintings, her posing. He wants what she has, he wants to create, but he’s a sociopath, he can’t do it. He’s incapable of the emotion required. He’s probably been watching her for months, but he wasn’t coveting her, he was coveting her creativity. He wants to do what she can, he-he wants to  _ feel _ and he’s going to use her to make it happen! Th-the video, the restraints, the blood; it’s performance art to him… Sculpture, painting and poetry all rolled into one... It’s his art and she’s his muse…”

 

Reid could barely catch his breath by the time he was done, fingers shaking slightly as he held the PDA out. On the screen the kidnapped woman was curled up on her side, chin tucked into her chest to hide her face from the lens, as if she was aware she was being stared at.

 

“Oh my God…” JJ whispered, staring blankly at the screen for a moment, then rushed out of the room to chase up to the police captain.

 

“Most of the profile is valid, Reid.” Hotch’s voice was unwaveringly calm as he reached out to gently lower the younger man’s arm, coaxing him to drop the hand holding the PDA to his side. 

 

“His priors won’t be, though. They won’t be sexual in nature. It’ll be something destructive. The usual. Harming animals, vandalism, maybe even arson… His job’s wrong too…” Spencer whispered, chest still rising up and down rapidly as he struggled to compose himself, his head aching from the amount of pressure his mind was under in that moment. “He won’t be a cleaner. More likely it’ll be uh- it’ll be pest control, animal control, something that ends life. He wants to create because all he does right now is destroy. We should- we should check to see if she’s had any issues in her apartment block with roaches or something…”

 

“Okay. It’s okay, I’ll go amend the profile and put out an APB for any cars that have already left. You did good, Reid…” Hotch nodded slowly, the gesture one to let Spencer know that for now his work was done. “Take a breath. When you’re ready, go join JJ. Just take a second first, okay?”

 

“Yes sir…” was the murmured response. Hotch waited until he was sunk down into one of the chairs at the briefing table and not going to collapse into a heap on the floor before he left him, taking purposeful rides through the precinct’s bullpen. 

 

When he was alone Reid looked down at the video feed on his PDA screen, fingers aching from where he’d been holding onto it so tight. Callie looked as if she was sleeping, occasional twitches going through her body. She was dreaming. God only knew what of. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he drew it out, holding it to his ear.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Hey, sweetness. Did you find what you were looking for?” 

 

Reid exhaled slowly through his nose at Garcia’s gentle voice. 

 

“I think so, yes…”

 

“You’re taking this one pretty hard, huh?” She was prompting him now, trying to get him to lean on her if he wanted. Of course she was. She needed someone to lean on in return. She was watching the stream too. Normally he wouldn’t, but...

“Garcia, I- Did you know I’ve been at Quantico almost eight months now and I’ve never brought anyone home alive? No-no missing kids, no ransomed wives, nobody…”

 

“I know, baby, but we’re going to find her. We are…” Garcia said softly down the other end of the phone, voice full of diffident sympathy. 

 

“Or watch her die…” His gaze was pinned to Callie’s form, blood thrumming loudly in his ears as he watched her sleep, thinking back to the portraits that lined her gallery walls. There was something particularly offensive about abusing that carefree face that had gazed out at him. 

 

Garcia was silent for several stretched moments before she eventually spoke again;

 

“If that happens, it will not be your fault. And… And nobody else will get to see it… I’m starting to break his network down. External connections are being cut off. Soon the only ones that will be able to see her are you and me, kiddo…”

 

“Thank you…”

 

“So uh… so you know after a certain point I’ll be able to jack his feed and open up his speakers. You’ll be able to talk to her, if you want… Once the VPNs are down I’ll have his location, I can open up a connection and she’ll be able to hear you. You’ll be able to tell her yourself that help is coming…”

 

“Really..?” Reid felt the first flicker of hope he had since that awful moment in the BAU briefing room where Callie’s image had been loaded onto the presentation screen, the image he unfortunately knew with absolute certainty going to be seared into his memory for the rest of time. 

 

“Yeah. I mean, we’d have to be sure he wasn’t there with her, but you could totally talk to her. I just have to get through. We’re going to find her, sweetness. We are. Between your big ol’ brain and my computer wizardry, he doesn’t stand a chance.”

 

“I hope you’re right…”

 

* * *

 

 

_**April 18th 2015. 4.03pm.** _

 

Reid had wanted to go help with canvassing Callie’s students but JJ had cut him off and set him to work rifling through their drawings instead, looking for others by the Unsub. She didn’t say it but he knew why. She trusted him more with patterns than people. 

 

That was fair.

 

It was still taking some adjusting, being in the BAU. His first dead body, he’d vomited. He’d managed to hold it in until he was away from the scene and avoid contamination, but once he’d ducked away he’d thrown up all over his dress shoes. The victim had been seven years old. One of four in the end before they’d finally caught the guy.

 

After that Reid had decided to wear Converse in the field. He could toss them in the laundry if he puked on them. 

 

That’s what it was all about. Finding ways to cope. To make the absolute worst the world had to offer manageable.

 

Gideon had told him that day that there was no shame in being moved by what he’d seen, but he had to find a way to control it until the job was done, to save compromising an investigation.

 

He was compromised now. He knew it. If Gideon was here he would have told him so. And then he would have pat him on the shoulder, told him to keep it together until she was home and kept him out of the field too. JJ had made the right decision.  

 

There were three more drawings in the end and as he studied them he felt the old threat of nausea rise from the pit of his stomach. There was absolute violence in these marks. A total hatred of the subject they depicted. 

 

None of them were signed but by some sheer serendipity they were dated. The third through to the twenty first of March. Then they stopped. They gave a picture of the descent into the psychotic break the Unsub was suffering now, the marks on them increasingly harried as they spanned the weeks. Whoever this was, they had violated Callie’s trust before ever laying hands on her. She’d shared a part of herself with the hope of inspiring beautiful things and the person behind these drawings had scorned that…

 

“Just come through here. It’s okay, we just want you to take a look at some pictures, that’s all…”

 

Reid glanced up as he heard Morgan’s voice, his friend leading a small girl into the room, maybe eighteen years old. She had thick black hair pulled back into a ponytail and dark, almond shaped eyes, piercings littering her nose, lips and ears. She barely came up to Morgan’s shoulder and was dressed in tattered denims that had been customised with badges and fabric paint, chipped black nail polish on her nails. She just screamed art student. 

 

“Melissa, this is Doctor Reid He’s here to help us find Callie. Reid, this is Melissa. She goes to class at Callie’s gallery twice a week for lifestudy, right?”

 

“Right…” the girl murmured, her voice surprisingly meek to go with her strainingly edgy appearance. She was staring at the drawings in Reid’s hand, and he noted a shudder go through her shoulders as she did. 

 

“Do you, uh, do you recognise these, Melissa…?” he broached gently, Morgan moving to guide her into the seat opposite him and take another next to her. 

 

“Yeah…” She was still staring at the pages rather than him, fingers twisting nervously in her lap. “She uh… She took them away from him because she didn’t want anyone else to see them… She’s never done that before. She always had something nice to say about your stuff, you know? Even if it sucked, she’d find something good. But she didn’t like those…”

 

“Who did she take them away from?” Morgan prompted in a low voice and as he spoke he reached to take one of the drawings from Reid’s hand and offered her a better view of it. She scowled at the page, shaking her head when she answered;

 

“His name was Reuben. I don’t know his last name. He was new. Quiet, at first. I saw him twice. The second time Callie threw him out of class…”

 

Reid’s eyes flickered up to meet Morgan’s, a silent nod shared behind them before he spoke again.

 

“Why did Callie throw him out, Melissa? Do you know why?”

 

“‘Cause he had a huge hard on. We don’t get many guys in class but everyone knows there’s rules, right? You don’t touch the model, you don’t touch yourself, and if you get a boner you walk it off.  But he just… He was making all this noise while he was drawing, like, like grunting and stuff, and he was pitching a tent. And Callie was cool about it at first, she tried to take him to one side and just get him to go for some air, but he flipped out. He was crazy. So she tossed him. Kept all his drawings, told him not to come back or she’d call the police…”

 

“There’s our stressor…” Morgan muttered under his breath, the teen’s eyes flickering up to look at him wide and frightened. 

 

“Did that asshole hurt Callie? I knew it! I told her, I said to her, ‘you gotta call the cops’, but she didn’t. She just wanted to get back to class, she was apologising like she’d done something wrong! He shouldn’t have been allowed to treat her like that!”

 

“We don’t know yet. But that’s what we’re gonna find out, sweetheart, okay?” Morgan replied quickly, attempting to calm the girl’s rapidly spiralling upset as tears filled her dark eyes. “Because you’re right. Nobody should be treated like that.”

 

“Is Callie dead..?”

 

“No.” 

 

The moment he said it, Reid immediately regretted it. Never give absolutes when the question came up of a victim being dead or alive. Never. Because then the next question was always..

 

“How do you know?”

 

“You’re just gonna have to trust us on this one. We believe Callie is alive and we’re not gonna stop until we bring her home and we catch the guy who did this.” Once again Morgan to the rescue. Reid gave him an apologetic glance. There was no way this young girl could be allowed to know just where the certainty that her teacher was alive came from. 

 

“We’re gonna need you to go sit with a sketch artist, he’s gonna ask you some questions about this Reuben guy and figure out just what he looks like, and then we’re gonna find Callie. You’ve been a big help, sweetheart.”

 

“I just want her to come home. Life’s not the same without her, you know?” 

 

“We know. Trust us, yeah?” Morgan gave the teen one of those dazzling,  _ I’ve got the whole world tucked safely in my hands _ , smiles that Spencer found he was endlessly envious of and she nodded tearfully, getting to her feet as he led her. At the door he paused to look back, calling softly,

 

“Reid, why don’t you get on the phone to Garcia, see if this Reuben guy crops up in any of Callie’s files?”

 

“Sure…” He was reaching for his phone and already dialling out when he heard his friend add,

 

“Hey, Reid. What I told her goes for you too. We’re not gonna stop until we find her. You know that.”

 

“Yeah, I… I know…” 

 

As he dialled out and once he was certain that the teenager could no longer see into the room, Reid pulled out his PDA and set it on the table, flicking open the livestream. She was still laid in the same spot, but awake now, staring into the camera lens. Those eyes were totally hopeless. She was giving up.

 

“Hey sweetness.”

 

“Hey, Garcia. I’ve got a name for you to run against Callie’s personal files. Hey, uh… How’s that feed back to the laptop going..?”


	5. The Masterpiece

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for the Kudos, guys! They feed a hungry writer hehe. As usual, I hope you enjoy, please comment if you do! FYI, things will get less gory after this chapter, so woo for that.

Just for a little while, in the beginning, Callie had thought that when the He left, maybe that would be the last time. Maybe he’d never come back and she’d get away somehow. Back to her mom, back to safety and sanity, back to her oils and canvasses and the comfort of wrapping herself up in blankets while she watched the snow fall over the city in winter.

 

By now though, she was aware there was a routine.

 

She’d be granted a reprieve. She didn’t know how long, but she’d be given time to recover. Then he would come back And it would start again.

 

There was the rattle of the door to her prison being drawn back. Metallic.

 

He’d left her untied today, (or was it tonight?) because he knew she didn’t have it in her to fight anymore. Impossibly strong hands scooped her up off the floor and dumped her onto the wooden seat, where she swayed giddily. The light went on overhead and he was in his typical garb, all rustles and shuffling and muffled breaths as he reached out with latex clad fingers to touch her cheek. It was a caress, like a lover’s. Callie flinched and leaned back, trying to escape that touch.

 

“Agapi…” The voice from behind the paper mask was soft. Concerned?

 

She bit his hand.

 

Immediately that was proven to be a grave mistake. The He roared and shook her off, then sent her spinning off the chair with a blow across the face. She landed on the floor with a smack and felt her shoulder blades tear open again.

 

“Little bitch!”

 

Foot connected with stomach. She choked as she felt the air blown out of her lungs from the impact. Her vision went white despite the darkness, pinpricks of light in spiraling stars dancing overhead. She couldn’t catch her breath. It wouldn’t come back. Good. Maybe now he’d finally kill her.

 

“Oh, no… no no no no...”

 

Hands were on her once more, gathering her up and cradling her in strong arms. This change of position brought with it oxygen and Callie let out a sob as she was swayed back and forth, the hold almost sweet.

  


“Please…” She  barely recognized her own voice.

 

“You’re okay,” was the response and she felt herself being lifted, placed back on the chair with much more care than before. She gripped the underside of the seat to steady herself. The He carefully brushed her hair back from her face and over her shoulder, then twitched the lemony gold silk he’d wrapped her in after her last beating so it cascaded over one shoulder. “If you would just do as I say, then it wouldn’t have to be like this.”

 

“I don’t understand what you want…” Callie hiccoughed, swallowing hard to stuff down the urge to cry out again, the tears tracking down her face coming silently now. She hated giving him the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

 

The figure peered down at her over the top of his mask and as Callie met his eyes she felt her insides drop away. There was nothing there. No rage, no fear, no amusement. Nothing. They were totally empty, a void. Inhuman. A scream tried to bubble up but she bit down on her tongue to keep it compressed, lurking just behind her teeth.

 

“Everything. I want everything from you.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

_**April 18th 2005. 6:11 pm.** _

 

Aaron Hotchner was used to his job rendering him speechless. Of all the cases JJ would feed through to them, the vast majority of them had taken away the ability to form comprehensible sentences at some point, even if only for a second or two.

 

This though…

 

The torture had been going on over an hour on the little screen of Reid’s PDA, propped up on the table in the workroom they’d been lent by NYPD’s 28th precinct. At some point the newest member of the BAU had become unable to watch anymore and simply handed it over, determined that someone should be keeping a constant eye on Callie Masterson, but incapable of doing it himself for a few minutes.

 

Hotch had thought about turning the sound down, but didn’t. They might lose valuable information if he did.

 

So he listened, as the girl sobbed and screamed and begged for her father.

 

Reid had been right. The longer Hotch watched, the clearer it became.

 

Her assailant was using her blood on the white space behind her. Enhancements from Garcia had confirmed it was an enormous canvas. The person that was holding her was opening up wounds with scalpels, being careful to avoid major artery sites. He wanted his inspirational source alive as long as possible, it seemed. With each cut he was collecting the blood in jars and cans, layers already held in them coagulated, or dipping his fingers straight into the wounds. Fresh coats were smeared all over the white space behind her.

 

Reid had been right…

 

Hotch thanked God under his breath when the girl lost consciousness and slumped in her seat. At least she’d be spared a little now.

 

He glanced up as Reid coughed a moment later in the doorway, dark circles under his eyes and a bottle of water in one hand.

 

“Is she-”

 

“She’s alive.”

 

Spencer closed his eyes at this and Hotch found himself struck for the thousandth time since meeting the undeniable genius just how _young_ he was.

 

“Reid, are you still with me? I need you here.” Hotch spoke firmly, his tone authoritative. Reid inclined his head slowly and when he opened his eyes again he looked calmer, the internal stillness he usually possessed recovered.

 

“Good.” Hotch nodded and offered him back the PDA, his cell phone ringing a moment later, answering it as Spencer took back the device and peered down at it. “Garcia?”

 

“Sir. I found him. Reuben Amado, thirty two years old, currently living in Crown Heights. So, there’s has a history of vandalism going back to when he was nine. Keying cars, tossing bricks through neighbourhood windows, that kinda thing. Then, as he got older he decided to up his game. At fifteen he was found with the neighbour’s cat in his bedroom, it’s neck broken. He claimed to have found it like that but the judge didn’t buy it; he was in a correctional facility until he was eighteen and then his record was expunged, though of course your resident oracle of all things unseemly and off limits was able to open it. A few minor convictions as an adult. Barfights, one count of assault against an ex-girlfriend, but she dropped charges before it went to court. And here’s the kicker; the guy set up shop two years back with a small scale extermination business. Low and behold, June 2004 he’s invoiced one Calliope Masterson to deal with a rat problem in a loft apartment she’s bought. Cross referenced with Callie’s computer files, he apparently purchased two paintings by her in November last year, and there were a pretty penny too, guy spent over two thousand dollars. Oh, and just to put the cherry on top of the creeper pie, he’s on her registrations attending four of her classes March of this year.”

 

“That’s the date on the drawings,” Reid interjected from his spot in the doorway, taking a step forwards into the room as he spoke. Hotch’s face was meticulously void of expression as he listened and when he spoke he his tones was perfectly level;

 

“Garcia, do you have an address?”

 

“Apartment 15, 925 Prospect Place, sir. He also rents a storage unit in Queen’s, I’m texting you the address now.”

 

“We’re moving.”

 

Hotch was out of his seat before he’d finished disconnecting the call, redialing immediately to conference with Morgan and JJ, the blonde woman helping to coordinate the police as Hotch relayed addresses. They’d have to split up to cover both locations.

__

* * *

 

_**April 18th, 2005, 6:41pm** _

 

Reid had bundled into a van with Morgan and four armed NYPD officers, equipped with kevlar vests and nightsticks. Morgan was in the driver’s seat, Garcia in their earpieces, giving rapid-fire directions when she paused suddenly before letting out a staccato yelp.

 

“I’m in! I’m into the computer, I just need five seconds-”

 

“Garcia, where is she?!”

 

The van lurched as Morgan braked hard, waiting for his next instructions.

 

There was high speed chanting in their ears as the tech worked, whispering breathlessly over and over,

 

“C’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon-”

 

As he listened to the mantra repeat, Reid snatched the device he’d been carrying like a talisman from his pocket, seeing their quarry was pitched into darkness once more, abandoned on the floor that was glistening wetly from what had passed in the hours before, face obscured by her arm. He strained to try and figure out if she was still breathing, but he couldn’t see any movement.

 

“Morgan-” he began, his chest tight. Derek held up a hand, fist closed, to silence him. Nobody wanted anyone to say those words, not when they were so close.

 

“Garcia!”

 

“I’ve almost got her, I’ve almost- Astoria Boulevard! At the cross of 95th and 97th Avenue! She’s in the unit!”

 

Rubber screeched on tarmac as Morgan ripped the van around and cut across an intersection, tearing east to follow Garcia’s directions. They’d been headed to the home address. The wrong way. Reid swallowed as he stared down at the screen in his palm, Callie’s form limp.

 

“Garcia, is she definitely alone?”

 

“I haven’t seen our bogey for a quarter hour at least now.”

 

Reid swallowed, then nodded more to himself than anyone around him, managing to find a solidity in his voice when he spoke again.

 

“The feed?”

 

“Already on it, sweetness. And you’re live in three, two, one-”

 

“Reid, what are you doing?” Morgan flashed a look over his shoulder for a heartbeat before he turned his eyes back to the road, knowing the moment he heard his colleague speak again exactly what he was doing.

 

“Callie? Calliope Masterson? My- my name is Doctor Spencer Reid, I’m with the FBI. Callie, can you give me a sign you can hear me?”

 

Morgan’s dark eyes flicked to the rearview mirror and saw the slender man in the back had pulled his earpiece out from his radio and clipped it into the PDA he was clutching instead, staring down at it with absolute focus.

 

“Callie? Calliope. We’re coming to get you, do you understand? We’re almost there, we’re coming to get you out, I promise…”

 

Reid felt his heart leap to his mouth when he saw the crumpled shape in the livestream move, a ghostly face rising from the concrete, staring into the camera lens as though she’d seen God, her frightened whisper right in his ear now.

 

“Hello..?”

 

A weaker man might have groaned. Reid did not, but he did feel as though every muscle in his body filled with liquid gold when he heard that voice.

 

“Callie. My name is Spencer Reid. I’m with the FBI and we are coming for you, do you understand? We’re coming to bring you home. Can you nod if you understand what I’m telling you? I can see you, don’t speak, just nod.”

 

There was a long pause, but finally her head twitched, and she actually smiled a reedy, quivering smile as a tear slid down her face. Reid felt himself smile back, just a fraction, the minutest curl at the corners of his mouth. She was going to be okay.

 

“Okay. Good. You’re doing great. We’re a couple of minutes from you. I want you to stay low, like you are now, there’s going to be a lot of noise, but you’re going to be fi-”

 

There was a crack of sound in his ear, a sharp bang that made him wince, and Callie gasped, suddenly illuminated by the lightbulb above. Reid pitched forwards in his seat, wanting to call out to her, but his whirlwind mind caught his mouth in time to stop it. He’d only put her in more danger if Reuben knew she was communicating with the authorities.

 

A second later he heard Hotch’s voice down the rubber piece nestled in the shell of his hear, calling from somewhere.

 

They’d got her. Everything was going to be fine, they’d got there first, Hotch would have her-

 

Callie shrieked as a hulking figure was upon her out of nowhere, the camera kicked and flying over backwards. It rolled to show a concrete ceiling, but the sounds of the girl struggling were still clear and Reid could hear his own voice without realizing he was calling out;

 

“Morgan! Morgan, he’s on her, Morgan-”

 

The brakes slammed and his head jerked up to see a set of storage units outside the window. Dropping the PDA, Reid threw himself out of the car, gun poised, feet pounding against the ground as he sprinted into the third unit along, it’s yellow metal shutter half rolled up. Morgan was hot on his heels with the police, but he made it inside first, long legs giving him the advantage.

 

The unit was in two levels, stairs leading down into a basement section. Reid hurried down them, chaos before him. Hotch was on Reuben Amado, pinning his legs to the ground while a member of the NYPD was on his arms, cuffing him. He was in a white personal protection suit, or it had been white once. Now it was stained crimson.

 

Behind them was the set up for the scene Amado had created, table propped with laptop and the camera rolled across the floor, bits of broken glass from it’s lens scattered about. The chair had been knocked over too, and beyond that the canvas, twice the size of a man, pushed to the ground.  Reid found his mind jolting back to the image of an Yves Klein painting. Klein had his models strip naked, coat themselves in blue paint and then roll across great sheets of paper on the floor for an audience.

 

Callie wasn’t blue. She was red. Red and gold and in the centre of the canvas, arms outstretched as if making a snow angel, face a sickly shade of porcelain.

 

Holstering his gun, Reid burst forwards, the first foot that made contact with the canvas punching through it and breaking the tension. Callie dipped as the fabric relaxed and the almost black pools of blood gathering under her wrists shifted, rolling across the white space. Falling to his knees, Reid clamped his hands over the deep vertical slashes cut into her pale skin, gripping her wrists as tight as he could, tight enough his hands burned. Reuben had gone for the arteries. Determined to finish his masterpiece.

 

“Medic! I need a medic!”

 

He was practically screaming. Not now. Not when they’d found her. Not like this.

 

Lashes fluttered and Callie looked up at him, pupils shrunken to pinpricks. They were glassy, her gaze almost going through him as she whispered,

 

“I heard you… You came…”

 

Before Reid could answer, eyes rolled back into her head and a breath left her in a long exhale.

 

“Where is the medic?!”


	6. The Hospital

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spencer and Callie finally meet! Thank you so much for the kudos/comments! I really appreciate it guys! I hope you like the next chapter. I guess this is the first act of the story done, as it were? Still lots more to come though, if people want it!

Music.

 

Bach’s Goldberg variations. The first movement. Aria. 

 

Clear blue eyes stared out the glass window pane and over the city, watching the first hues of gold and vermilion wash across the sky, New York’s towering skyscrapers silhouetted black against them. Had the colours ever been this bright?

 

_ “She’s tachycardic!”  _

 

Languid arpeggios of piano keys washed around her. Callie inhaled slowly and thought for a moment she could taste the notes. 

 

Oh, but what a morning…

 

_ “...hypovolemia, catheterize her now…” _

 

The sun broke, brilliantly bright, the sky aflame with radiance. She pressed a hand to the glass, and it was so warm, her palm tingling.

 

“... _ oxygen levels at eighty two percent, intubating…” _

 

“Calliope?”

 

Daddy.

 

He was behind her.

 

She didn’t look back. If she did, that’d be it. She’d follow him out into that sunlight. 

 

_ “...BP eighty three over fifty….” _

 

“Calliope, sweetheart…”

 

“I can’t. Not yet. I know they found me. I remember. Someone found me, daddy…”

 

_ “...twenty two year old female, multiple lacerations, bilateral bleeds in the ulnar arteries…” _

 

“Are you sure? The pain will come back if you wake up…”

 

_ “...get the cart, she’s crashing…” _

 

“Not yet. I can’t. I want to live…”

 

“That’s my girl.”

 

* * *

 

Spencer stood at the sink in a hospital bathroom, desperately scrubbing his hands, trying to get Callie Masterson’s blood out from under his nails. There’d been so much. It’d just kept coming and coming, even as he’d gripped onto her wrists with all his might, seeping between his fingers and soaking through his clothes. The medics had had to peel him off her, he'd been so afraid of letting go. They'd had to full on yell at him to get through, force him to trust them, believe he could release her and allow them to take over. 

 

His button down and sweater vest lay abandoned on the floor, crumpled in a stained pile, replaced by a hospital scrubs tunic. Trembling fingers snatched out to turn the tap hotter and he soaped up to his elbows. If she died on the operating table, that would be the last memory of this case he’d be cursed with; the woman he’d promised he’d save bleeding to death in his hands.

 

He was calmer by the time he stepped back into the waiting room. Callie’s mother had been brought to the hospital and he could not allow her to see him shaken. 

 

Morgan was waiting for him, sat roosted forwards in one of the plastic chairs that lined the room, elbows leaned into his thighs, hands clasped, head bowed. Ruth Masterson was pressed almost to the glass doors that led down into surgery, sobbing uncontrollably as a nurse held her and tried to console her, asking her to just wait, wait for the doctor, she would be fine, just wait... 

 

“Still no news?” 

 

Reid surprised himself with how calm he sounded. His rational mind pointed out in a little voice somewhere close to his left temple that there was no point now, really, in panicking. The situation was entirely out of his control.

 

“Nothing yet.” Morgan stood, stretching, a couple of clicks coming from his shoulders. “You can head back to the precinct, kid. Hotch is processing Amado now with the PD, you're done…” 

 

“I can't leave. Not yet. Not until…” Reid trailed off and Morgan nodded, a glimmer of understanding in his eyes. 

 

“Right. Closure. You did all you could for her, Reid. I want you to remember that. Whatever happens now, whatever way it goes, you couldn't have gotten to her any faster if you tried…” 

 

Reid swallowed, finding his friend's words did nothing to settle his tumultuous insides, his exhausted gaze fixed on Callie’s mother. Morgan sighed and chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment, then murmured, 

 

“I'm gonna get a coffee. You want one?” 

 

“Yes. Please. Sugar, no cream…”

 

“You got it.” 

 

A strong hand clapped him on the shoulder and Morgan moved away, leaving him alone to wait. Weary arms folded over his chest, balls of his feet twisting slightly into the linoleum floor before he began to pace, time slowed to a crawl. Callie had been in surgery almost three hours now…

 

He didn't know how long he'd been wearing holes into the floor when the doors to the surgical ward opened and a small man in his fifties emerged, still in his cap and clean green scrubs. Reid glanced up, seeing a quiet exchange occurring between the doctor and Ruth Masterson. After a moment the grey haired women broke down and her legs almost gave way, the nurse who'd been comforting her just managing to keep her upright. For a second Reid thought his old habit of vomiting might rear its head again, until he realised the sounds coming from Callie's mother weren't mourning. They were relief, the barrier that had been holding her off the edge of total despair giving way to a torrent of better emotion and resulting in an outpouring of feeling. 

 

He stepped forwards, about to say something, but Morgan called his name, stopping him. Glancing back over his shoulder with large eyes, the more experienced BAU agent gazed back at him levelly, paper coffee cup in each hand, his voice even as he spoke;

 

“Give her mom a second…”

 

He had no right to argue. He knew he didn’t. He didn’t  _ know _ Callie. She wasn’t a friend or a loved one. He would mean nothing to her. But he had to see her for himself, one last time. To know for sure she was going to walk away from this. 

 

His head bobbed once in a measured nod and he took his coffee from Morgan with a muttered,

 

“Thanks,” peering over the curls of steam rising from it to watch the surgeon lead the little party through the double doors. His bones ached from weariness and adrenaline run off, every nerve frayed. Despite Morgan’s best efforts the coffee wasn’t sweet enough. He drank it anyway, needing it to keep him going. 

 

Ten pm came and went, then eleven. After a call from Hotch to let them know Amado had signed a full confession without contest, Morgan had slumped in his seat and fallen asleep, chin resting on his chest. 

 

Spencer was used to not sleeping on a good day. His mind allowed him maybe three hours at a time. He’d get a few broken blocks over the course of a night, but rarely deep. His brain never truly shut off, not completely. The way he figured, so long as he got 90 minutes of REM sleep a night, that’d be enough. What was it Heraclitus had written?

 

_ Even a soul submerged in sleep is hard at work and helps make something of the world. _

 

Spencer suspected he would have liked Heraclitus.

 

A few minutes before midnight, Ruth Masterson emerged from the double doors, a new serenity about her. She looked exhausted, but not in that hollowed out way she had before, when she’d been sat in Callie’s gallery. Had that only been this morning? It felt like years ago.

 

She adjusted the strap of her purse over her shoulder as she walked, tucking it in tighter to her side. Shuffling across the waiting room, she approached the agents. Spencer got to his feet quickly, giving Morgan’s foot a nudge with his own to try and rouse him, but all it earned him was a grunt. When the older woman reached them she smiled.

 

“Mrs Masterson. How is she?”

 

“She’ll be alright, thanks to you…” the woman breathed, her words weighted with feeling. Reid gave her a stiff attempt at a smile, inclining his head a fraction as he replied,

 

“We’re happy to have helped,” not knowing what else to say. Ruth smiled in return, hers just as fragile. 

 

“She’s asking for you… I uh- I need to go to her apartment, fetch some of her things. Do you think you could sit with her a while? I don’t want to impose, but… The thought of her being alone-” She faltered, words getting stuck in her throat, looking as if she might cry again. Reid nodded quickly as he saw her crumbling. 

 

“Of course. Take as long as you need, ma’am.” He kept his tone as kind as he could, wanting to try and allay any fear she might have about leaving her daughter. Morgan might have touched her arm, but he hadn’t quite figured out the nuances of that yet, so he tucked his hands in his pockets instead to have something to do with them. “Agent Morgan and I will be here in the hospital until you get back.”

 

“Thank you… I won’t be long, I just want to get her pyjamas. Seeing her in that hospital gown, I-”

 

Another crack in her voice. She forced a smile when she couldn’t speak. Reid forced one back. It didn’t need saying. 

 

When she’d composed herself, the older woman glanced back at the doors she’d come through and said softly,

 

“She’s the third room on the left. She’ll probably just sleep.”

 

“It’s alright, Mrs Masterson. I’ll wait with her until you get back, I promise.”

 

For a moment he wasn’t sure the girl’s mother would actually leave. It was only when he stepped away to start towards the ward, pushing the swing doors open and glancing back as he did, that she seemed to relax. Morgan was still asleep in his seat. Reid decided to leave him. They’d all been awake over twenty four hours now. 

 

Ruth finally turned once the doors closed behind him and he ran a weary hand through his hair as he padded down the corridor, stopping outside the door she’d directed. Now he’d got there, he didn’t quite know what to do. Normally in situations such as this someone else would take point and he’d be free to linger in the background, unnoticed and unencumbered. 

 

He settled on knocking. Two light, rhythmic raps on the wooden panel. Then he pushed it open slowly with his fingertips, ducking his head around first to peer inside.

 

The room was small but clean, dimly lit. There were monitors and drip stands and oxygen canisters and in the centre of it Callie lay in the bed, looking very small and pale. Spencer hovered at the doorway, half in the room, half out, watching her. She looked to be asleep. The rise and fall of her chest was just visible and he felt the tension in his body ease once he’d witnessed that. Tubes and wires were criss-crossing over her little form, feeding her blood, oxygen, pain relief, monitoring her heart rate... A quick glance over the heart monitor told him her blood pressure was holding steady and oxygen saturation back above ninety percent. She was stable.  

 

He finally managed to step in the room, closing the door silently, maintaining a good distance between himself and the bed. Someone had cleaned her skin and brushed her hair. Probably her mother. It looked closer to silver than blonde now she was in a light, arranged carefully in waves that rest down to her collarbones. Her arms were bandaged elbow to wrist. Amado had cut deep. She’d be left with scars. There were smaller dressings littered over the rest of her skin. How many times had he hurt her, in the end? How deep would these wounds run in her future..?

 

Unable to help himself, he lifted the chart from where it was hooked over the foot of the bed, eyes scanning her vitals from the last few hours. Yes, he wasn’t a medical doctor, but really, it was mostly mathematics and anyone with Google understood human physiology, nevermind his field training, a monkey could read this-

 

“I’m pretty sure you’re not my nurse…”

 

He almost dropped the chart. Narrowly catching it in time to stop it clattering to the floor, Spencer looked up to see the girl in the bed staring back at him from beneath heavily lidded eyes. Unbelievably, she was smiling. Not much, but it was there. A real, warm, genuine smile.

 

“I- I’m sorry, I just- I wanted to check- I have no excuses. That was a violation. Sorry…”

 

“You’re him, aren’t you?”  Callie swallowed, her throat sore and voice hoarse from disuse. Quickly Spencer replaced the chart at the foot of the bed and moved around to the seat that was pulled up to the side, sinking to perch right on the edge of the cushion. The girl watched him all the way, ice blue eyes following him around the room without blinking. She was still on edge. Hardly surprising.

 

“You’re Spencer Reid. You’re the voice…” she pressed again, fingers curling in the blanket spread over her. Reid gave a meek little nod, a sheepish smile on his face as he replied quietly,

 

“Yes. That was me.” 

 

“I knew it. I’ll know that voice anywhere now…” Callie smiled again, then blinked slowly, her ordeal and the high level of pain relief she was on clearly making it difficult to focus. Reid frowned slightly as he watched this, about to suggest she went back to sleep when she returned her gaze to meet his, eyes boring into him.

 

“You saved my life. Thank you.”

 

“You don’t need to thank me, my team-”

 

“No.” She cut him off, something so pleading in her bruised face as she looked up at him that he felt the words he was trying to say instantly forgotten. “ _ You _ saved my life. I was ready to die. I was. But then I heard you, and there was hope, and.. And I wanted to live…”

 

Silence hung in the air, a gossamer thread between saviour and survivor. They just looked at one another, the soft beep of the heart monitor the only sound. 

 

Finally, Reid nodded. Callie smiled again, clear blue eyes glassed with tears. It was understood. 

 

White fingers flexed on the bed, too weak to lift her arm and reach out. Reid glanced down, hesitated, then slowly curled his warm hand around her cool one in a feather light hold. When he looked back up the girl had closed her eyes again, dark shadows crossing her face as she sank back into the pillows, clinging to his thumb tight.

 

“Your mother will be back soon. She’s gone to pick up some clothes for you. You can sleep until she gets back,” he whispered, adding after a moment, “You’re safe…”

 

“I know…” was the reply, barely audible, more an exhale than spoken words. 

 

That was the last thing either of them said. Spencer sat with her until her mother returned, watching her sleep, hands still woven together. It was going to be a long road for her, but she  _ was _ a survivor. If there was any justice in the world she’d be allowed to heal and move on and return to the beauty she’d built a life creating. Amado had tried to take that away from her, but he’d failed. Calliope. It meant ecstatic harmony. He wondered if she knew that.

 

When he left he gave Ruth Masterson his card. Told her she could always call. She’d hugged him tightly and cried into his chest for a few moments. He’d patted between her shoulder blades stiffly. Touched the back of Callie’s hand before he left her. Safe.

 

On the plane back to Quantico he slept the entire way. Morgan drove him to his apartment. He didn’t remember actually letting himself in. He collapsed into bed as the sunlight started to peep in through the rim of the bedroom window and by some gift of providence didn’t dream. 

  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  



	7. The Letter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter for anyone that's still reading :) As usual, thank you very much for the kudos/comments. They really do make my day. Really really. I'm not sure when the next chapter will be, I need to have a teensy bit of a think about structuring, but hopefully not too long. I'm getting to the part of ficcing I really love now, writing about people as opposed to action, (not my forte at all hehe). If you've come this far, I'd really appreciate your feedback x

Weeks passed. Spencer didn’t exactly forget Callie Masterson, incapable of doing so, but other cases came and went, more people needing help, more victims and families needing justice and closure, and gradually she settled into a pocket at the back of his mind. A private place filed away for later. Tragedy quickly outweighed the victory they’d had in bringing her home and overwhelmed any good feeling it’d gifted him with.

 

Jason Gideon had said something to him once, about a week after he’d joined the BAU.

 

“The dead always outweigh the living. It’s up to us to decide which faces are going to follow us around.”

 

Gideon had shown him his books a few days after that. One for the lives he’d saved, one for the lives that’d been lost. Each page had a photograph. The living one had far less pages, but it lived in the top drawer at his desk. The other was kept in the bottom one.

 

Spencer had thought about starting one of these books, but the notion was forgotten by early June. Work rained down on the BAU, an endless torrent of human degradation and suffering, and Callie Masterson was locked quietly away someplace in Spencer’s mind where nothing would be allowed to touch her again. An eidetic memory meant he didn’t need photographs. If he needed to remind himself that sometimes he was able to prevent a death, she would always be there. 

 

Monday, June 6th, he was at his desk by 7:52 in the morning, depositing his satchel and coffee cup and settling into his seat. He yawned as he scrubbed his hand through his hair, seeing the lights on in JJ’s office across the bullpen. She was always the first to arrive and last to leave. 

 

Mondays usually started with admin, at least for a couple of hours. JJ would have a fresh pile of case files on her desk that would come in over the weekend, and she’d spend the morning filtering through them, making the gruelling decision of what warranted presentation to the team and what didn’t.

 

By 9:00am the department was full and bustling. Morgan sat on the desk pod opposite Reid’s and chatted idly with Garcia on the phone about how to use the new digital filing system, phone cradled between his chin and ear. Reid glanced up with a slight smirk as he heard,

 

“Babygirl, I love you, you know that, but you are not being cute right now!”

 

That was something Reid always marvelled at. The easy going, relaxed way Morgan could talk to people, especially women. In college by thirteen, it was hardly surprising he just couldn’t do what Morgan did. He’d never had peers. Those of his age at school had bullied him mercilessly for being different, and in Caltech while still in size five sneakers, he was never going to have a moment where intellectual and physical maturity overlapped with those around him. 

 

It was at least better after he joined the FBI academy. The BAU had always been the endgame for him, there was nothing else. And coming into the team had felt a lot like coming home. He was viewed as brilliant as opposed to a freak. Sure, there was the occasional teasing, but it was always meant well. He finally had friends.

 

Still.

 

His social skills would never evolve to the point where he’d casually call someone ‘Babygirl’ and tell them he loved them as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Babygirl. Huh. No. Even if he had Morgan’s confidence, that still sounded weird rolling it around in his head with his own voice. 

 

He rolled his eyes at his colleague over the desk divider, the exaggerated expression one of good-natured mocking. Morgan smirked back at him, then swivelled on his seat in a slow half circle to turn his back to him as he continued berating Garcia playfully for over complicating the filing system as an excuse for his lack of IT skills. Reid, naturally, hadn't had any problems with the transition. 

The morning's mail was dropped into their trays by 9:15. Red’s gaze had flickered briefly over to his slimline pile. A couple of manilla envelopes, case reports and follow ups from investigations most likely. He'd get to it. 

 

The post lay ignored until he went to refill his coffee just after ten. As he swirled the wooden stirrer on the move back to his desk, he glanced at the pile again and picked it up on the way past, spreading the envelopes out across his desk as he sat back down and slurped from his mug. There were four A4 packets with government postmarks and typed addresses on them, a white A5 that looked like internal mail, possibly from the forensics department. Starting to open them up, he almost missed the much smaller, pastel blue envelope, catching sight of it as it tried to slip away under his keyboard. Abandoning his coffee and the other packages, Reid reached out to draw the cornflower slip towards himself. His name and the BAU’s address was handwritten, the penmanship cursive and slanted. Written in ink. Who used a fountain pen anymore? 

 

Turning it over in his hands, he saw a New York postal mark on the front. The stamp had a photo of a sunflower on it. Eyebrows drawing together, he slipped his thumb under the seal to open it up. Inside were several sheets of paper, more sunflowers printed on them in sheer colours. When he unfolded them a Polaroid slipped out from between them and fell on the floor. He ducked quickly to scoop it up, but not before Morgan spotted it. 

 

“What you got there, kid?” he asked as Spencer straightened back up. 

 

“I'm not sure…” Spencer dropped his gaze to the glossy square in his hand, and felt himself break into an involuntary smile, before he stuffed it quickly back into the envelope and slipped it into the breast pocket of his jacket, earning a wolfish smirk from his friend. 

 

“Is it porn?” 

 

“It's personal!” 

 

“Oh, it's definitely something smutty, share with the class!”

 

* * *

 

Morgan had dogged him all day over the letter. To his credit, he never helped himself to it, but he did take every possible opportunity to pretend he was pickpocketing the jacket in a variety of different ways. 

 

On the way out of the door that night, he made a passing quip about Penthouse Forum. If Spencer had been the sort, he might have falcon punched him in the arm. Instead he had retorted that the grammatical quality of what he'd received probably far surpassed anything Penthouse printed and got onto his bus with a broad grin. 

 

He kept the letter safely pressed to his chest inside his pocket until he reached the solitude of his apartment. Once inside he settled at his kitchen table and finally took the envelope out again, carefully pulling out the contents and setting the photograph down on the surface of the table before he began to read. 

 

_ Dear Spencer, _

 

_ I hope you don’t mind me calling you Spencer. I started another draft with Doctor Reid, but that felt too impersonal, Agent even more so. _

 

_ I don’t know if you’ll remember me. I suppose you get mail like this all the time. I, on the other hand, have never written a letter like this one.  _

 

_ I was sorry not to say goodbye to you at the hospital, but that was probably for the best. I’m not sure what I would have said.  _

 

_ I’m almost healed now. There’s some scarring, but I like the colour purple and in this city you need to wear a sweater nine months out of the year anyway. _

 

Spencer felt the beginning of a smile at this, tucking the first page behind the others to continue reading.

 

_ At first, I had a lot of questions. About why he chose me. My mom tried to explain, but I don’t think there is really any explanation, is there?  _

 

_ Last week I held my first drawing class since I came home. People came to my apartment and I still modelled for them, just the same as always. I understand that’s how you knew who took me. Melissa told me that. The night of the class, she told me I was “nuts.” I told her I was happy.  _

 

_ It’s the truth. I am happy. I know I’m one of the lucky ones. The luckiest. Life was gifted to me, so I can’t waste it being afraid to live. _

 

Another page turn. Spencer's thumb pad brushed the corner of the paper slightly as he moved it, head cocked a little to the right as he read. Lucky was not necessarily the perspective he would have taken. 

 

_ I find myself wondering though, if you’re happy. Are you?  _

 

_ I know that question is too personal. But I also know that you won’t write back. I don’t expect you to. Like I said, I bet you get letters all the time. This is just another voice in a crowd, I suppose.  _

 

_ Still, it’s been bothering me. I’m home. I’m safe. I pay an embarrassing amount to see a therapist twice a week and I will get healthy again. My wounds are healing. One day what happened to me will be just a memory. Hopefully I’ll get married, have babies and grandbabies. I’ll go to Paris to paint, or Italy, or both. I’ll grow old and dye my hair blue shamelessly, set in a bad perm. _

 

Spencer laughed. Softly, privately. But he laughed. Turned the page.

 

_ I’ll get to do all those things, because of you. I’ll be able to close a door on what happened and live the rest of my life.  _

 

_ But what about you? _

 

_ There will be another girl in somebody’s basement, won’t there? Or something else. Something worse. Not everyone is as lucky as me.. _

 

He paused in reading. The images that’d been on the viewing screen earlier that day flickered across his mind's eye. They’d been reviewing a case where body parts had been turning up along a freeway in Indiana, trying to get into the mind of a person capable of doing that to another human being. There’d been eight individuals so far that were amongst the dumps, and not everything of what had made them whole had been accounted for…

 

_ It takes a special sort of person to face that kind of darkness and not be consumed by it. I won’t presume to say I know anything about you, but I know what I saw, when you found me in that place. _

 

_ I don’t know what one day to the next is like for you. I can’t imagine. If I’m honest, I don’t want to. Logically, my mind says that finding me was probably a blue moon kind of scenario.  _

 

_ It was my birthday yesterday. I turned twenty three with my mom and my friends, eating coffee cake in Central Park. _ _ I shouldn't have been there, should I? Not really. _

 

_ I wanted you to have the photo. I don’t know if it’ll mean anything to you. But maybe, if you have a bad day sometime, if the luck just isn’t there for someone else like it was for me, maybe you might want it then… _

 

Large eyes flickered up from the page to the Polaroid laid on the table before him. It was Callie, caught in the sunlight, laughing as she peered down at candles flickering on a cake, their flames uplighting her features. She was dressed in a gypsy skirt and tank top, bare feet curled in the grass, the scars on her skin glaringly obvious in their newness, but she’d made no effort to cover them. She wasn’t ashamed. She had said she was happy and in that moment, frozen in time, he could believe it.

 

The date was scribbled in the white space underneath the image, June 2nd, 2005, and beside that the same handwriting as the letter:  _ Because of Spencer.  _

 

Swallowing, he turned to the final page. 

 

_ I hope you’re okay. I hope you have more good days than bad. I hope if you ever come back to New York one day, you’ll let me draw your portrait.  _

 

_ Most of all, I hope you know how grateful I am to you.  _

 

_ Yours today, tomorrow and for every happy day I’m still blessed with, _

 

_ Calliope x _

 

He didn’t need to read the letter again. One pass was enough to have it locked into place forever. But he did. And then he read it again. And again. 

 

When he finally stood, he took the photograph with him and tacked it to the fridge with one of the alphabet magnets he’d brought in a bid to make the place feel ‘homey’. Callie rest pride of place next to the only other picture up there; his six year old self with his mother. 

 

He didn’t have enough for a book of lives saved yet. But if one day he did, that photograph would get the front cover. 

 

The letter went away into a drawer, locked for safekeeping. He knew he shouldn’t reply. There were all sorts of ethical issues involved, nevermind professional. If he was called to testify in Amado’s trial… 

 

She didn’t expect him to reply. She’d said so herself. It’d been a nice gesture, but that was all it was. She was being enfolded back in with friends and loved ones and seemingly making a remarkable recovery. She wasn’t reaching out. It was just part of her healing. 

 

The picture stayed on the fridge. The letter lay quiet in the dark. Not forgotten but not acknowledged again. 

 

For almost a month. 

 

A child died.

 

It should have been preventable. It would have been. Jonathan Lindiss, forty one. History of manic depressive episodes and obsessive compulsion. He’d found out his wife had been having an affair. Snapped. Started murdering surrogates for her. Escalated until he came back to the home. Total psychotic break. Took her head off with a 22 gauge. 

 

The child hadn’t needed to die. He wasn’t part of the pattern. But Jonathan was so far over the edge he didn’t know what his own skin was anymore. His six year old son had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. They’d been four minutes too late to the house. 

 

Reid showered until the water ran cold. Cried a little.

 

When he emerged from his bathroom he went to make cereal, not able to stomach real food. 

 

Replacing the milk in the fridge, Callie’s face smiled up at him when he closed the door. His fingers brushed white border beneath her.

 

_ Because of Spencer. _

 

The cereal was dumped in the sink. After some fumbling, he managed to unlock the drawer, rifling through the papers inside it to draw out the precious blue envelope. He hesitated for a heartbeat, almost second guessing himself, then drew the pages out, opening the first one.

 

A return address was neatly noted in the top right hand corner. 

 

For a long while he sat at the table, staring down at a blank sheet of paper, pen in hand. This would be crossing a line. Amado still hadn’t been prosecuted. Until he was in jail, there was a serious conflict of interest. 

 

He just needed to know she was okay…

 

_ Dear Calliope... _


	8. The Reply

Thursday, July 9th, Callie Masterson juggled one arm loaded with a paper grocery bag, an egg carton doing it’s best to roll out the top of it, and her keys in the other hand, huffing as she fought to unlock her apartment door, her cell phone pinned between her chin and shoulder.

 

“No mom, I know but- Mom, I will be fine. I will. You're going to Cancún, not Mars. You need a vacation. You’ve been planning this for months, come on! No. No, I’m not gonna get into trouble. Mom. Mom! Stop!”

 

A strategic twist of her arm had the door unlocked and caught the eggs as the cardboard carrier finally slipped free from it’s spot perched on the top of the bag, the little blonde huffing as she shoved the door open with the toe of her boot then stepped through while still trying to argue, albeit as kindly as she could, with her mother;

 

“Mom, this has to stop. It’s been weeks. I am _fine_. I am. I want you to go on your vacation, please? Seriously. I do. I am so sick of that guy screwing things up. Please? Do this for me. Uhuh. Yeah, I know it’s not fair. That’s the point. You can’t argue it.”

 

A soft chuckle left her as she set the bag down on her kitchenette counter-top and turned back to close the apartment door, scooping up her mail from where it’d gathered on the mat once she’d slid the security chain and deadbolt across.

 

“Look, I have a commission piece, it isn’t due for another month but I could take a few studio days and stay home to work on it, would that make you feel better? KJ could run the gallery while I’m out, I got a little in the pot to cover the overtime for her...“

 

White fingers flicked through the envelopes while she negotiated with her mother, giving the mail a cursory look over. Circular, circular, electricity charges. Something from the judiciary department in a brown envelope. Oh God.

 

“Mom, I uh… I gotta go. Sorry, I- I have another call coming through. Nothing just- I might be getting a museum spot. Uhuh. Yeah, I wanted to surprise you, but- I’ll talk to you later, let you know what they say, okay? Uhuh. Love you. Bye.”

 

Her hands were trembling when she hung up the phone. She felt a twist of guilt for lying to her mother, but she didn’t need to know anything until she _needed_ to know. Callie had realised early on that her mother had come out far worse from the abduction than she had.

 

The rest of her mail lay abandoned on the counter along with her cell as she tore the envelope open, clear blue eyes cast down to read the contents.

 

A hearing date. Just a month away. Sentencing. Plea bargain.

 

Okay.

 

Okay. she could deal with this. It was going to be fine.

 

Her attorney had already explained that the video files they’d pulled from Amado’s laptop would be enough to put him away for a very, very long time. This was all just window dressing.

 

She’d spent weeks trying to convince her mother everything would be alright. She had to believe it now. He could not be allowed to get under her skin again.

 

She was going to have to see him, in that courtroom.

 

Fine.

 

Let him look her in the eye.

 

Numbness was a welcome sensation as she put her groceries away.

 

One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi...

 

Boots came off and were left tucked by the door. She slid off her maxi dress and let it pool around her feet. Stretched her arms high over her head, eyes closed. Inhaled through her nose. Lengthened her spine

 

Eighty six Mississippi, eighty seven Mississippi…

 

 _Breathe. You’re alive. Just breathe_.

 

Dinner was reheated pasta. She ate in her favourite spot, watching the city illuminate from the ground up as the evening wore on, curled against velvet beanbags and silk cushions, hugging her bowl to her chest.

 

Slipping on a tee and shorts once she had eaten, she set about cleaning the dishes, then wiped down the counter, eyes falling on the junk mail she’d ditched earlier. She threw the dishcloth in the sink, scooping up the glossies and went to drop them into the garbage. She almost missed the white envelope. The court letter had very nearly drowned it out.

 

Once she’d made sure it was the only other real post she had, she tossed the rest out and peered at the handwriting on it, frowning. Unfamiliar.

 

Grabbing a beer from the fridge, she tucked the letter into her shorts and let herself out of her apartment, moving up the final flight of the steps and pushing the fire door open that led out onto the roof. She propped the plastic lawn chair someone else thoughtful had left up there between the door and the frame to pin it open and padded over to the spot she’d marked as her own territory up there; a yoga cushion that had never been used for its intended purpose pulled right up to the safety rail that ran around the edge of the building. Here she sat, same as she had most nights since she’d been pulled out from the dark, needing to feel the moving air before she slept. Bare legs dangled over the edge, beer bottle rest between her thighs so she could sip from it when she wanted, her arms looped over the rail to keep her safe.

 

Once she was comfortable she pulled the envelope out and unsealed it, warranting she was in a better position with the night air and a beer for reading more about her legal case if that’s what this was. There were two sheets of lined paper folded inside and the writing on them was loose, not quite chicken scratch but haphazard in a way that gave the impression the hand with the pen could not keep up with its owner’s thoughts. Flipping to the end, a smile teased at the corner of her mouth when she saw who it was. She shuffled slightly so the paper could catch the light from the streetlamps below, cheek rest on the safety rail as she read.

 

_Dear Calliope,_

 

_Spencer is fine. I hope Calliope is, too. That's not what everyone else called you. But seeing as it is how you signed your letter, I guess it probably is._

 

_Of course I remember you. I will always remember._

 

_Protocol dictates I have no contact with any individual from an investigation my department is involved in until the trial is complete. This letter is in breach of more directives than I care to count._

 

_I tell you this first of all so you might report me, if you wish, and second so that you understand you were absolutely not forgotten._

 

_In answer to your suppositions of your letter being buried amongst a pile of others, you can rest easy. We don't often hear from people after a case is complete. Nobody wants to remember the incidents we are associated with and therefore nobody wants to remember us. Which is how it should be. People have to be able to move on from whatever brought our team into their lives. We should be forgotten. It's only right._

 

_Please don't interpret that as a lack of gratitude for your letter, or a criticism of your ability to move past what happened to you. It is neither, I promise. It just meant a great deal. The photograph too. You may have been right. Sometimes a reminder of something good is necessary._

 

_Happy Birthday. I know it’s too late, but I do mean it._

 

_If you go to Italy, you should visit the Sistine Chapel. Did you know that the frescoes Michelangelo painted on the ceiling are never allowed to dry? It poses too much risk that the plaster might crack and the painting be lost. They are so delicate that the restorative artists who tend to them aren't allowed to breathe on them. They have to wear masks just to protect the PH of the paint. They have survived wars and revolutions and earthquakes, though. They go on and on, being adored by countless people, despite everything they have endured._

 

_Regarding my own happiness, well, that I am not sure I can answer. It’s a loaded question. I am well, if that’s what you mean. I hope that answer will be enough for you._

 

_I am glad to hear you are happy, though. I have not been with the Behavioural Analysis Unit long, but with every case I work on, I do find myself wondering about the long term impact of what we see on those who have to continue their lives once we are gone. The communities who have witnessed terrible things. The friends, and families, both of victims and of suspects. The parents. We get to leave, but they have to carry on. You told me you have scars, and I knew you would. I also know some may take longer to heal than others, but I hope all wounds will eventually close for you._

 

_I hope that Reuben Amado will not define the rest of your life. Reading your letter, I do not believe he will._

 

_You were also right that a happy ending is rarer than we would like. This may be more than you need to know, but you were the first person I have been able to reunite with their family._

 

_The good days do not outweigh the bad. Truthfully, if they did, my job would probably not be necessary._

 

_All we can do is make the most of the good days when they come._

 

_I had not intended to write back to you. I know that to do so is beyond unprofessional. But today was a bad day. I was glad of the photograph today and I wanted you to know that._

 

_In your own words;_

 

_“I hope you’re okay. I hope you have more good days than bad.”_

 

_Sincerely,_

 

_Spencer Reid_

 

Part of Callie wanted to cry.

 

She had fully expected never to have a response. She hadn’t told anyone about the letter. It almost didn’t get sent. But she had felt as if she owed this person something. Some sort of proof that he was the good guy in the world that’d been so, so bad for her… Once again she could hear that voice, a promise in the dark that everything would be okay.

 

A second read of the pages had her eyes burning. " _The good days do not outweigh the bad."_ How many Reuben Amados were there in the world?

 

He’d broken the rules to write to her. They’d barely exchanged more than a few words, but he’d written and was putting his job on the line to do so.

 

_"Today was a bad day."_

 

_Don’t, Callie. Don’t do it. Don’t…_

 

It was past 1am when she finished writing. She sat up on the roof, scribbling by the light of the city, the humid air settling into something cooler and bringing some relief with it, her beer forgotten and turned flat at her knee as she perched cross legged on the rim of the world.

 

_Dear Spencer,_

 

_Calliope was what my father named me. He was a painter too, a romanticist. Reuben wasn’t the only person with muses on the brain…_

 

_But Calliope is my name. I go by Callie usually because most people can’t pronounce it. They make me sound like a cantaloupe melon._

 

_I didn’t mean to cause you trouble by writing you, I’m sorry if I have. I realise the irony that apology holds as it comes in a second letter._

 

_I wanted to tell you I had the trial date come through today. August 5th. My lawyer is confident. I promise you, I will not allow that man to define a single minute of my life from the moment I leave that courthouse._

 

_That's enough shop talk._

 

_Are you a Michelangelo fan? I've never met someone outside of my art school who knew that much about his frescoes. I've always wanted to see the Sistine's ceiling. If I get there, I'll send you a postcard._

 

_If I am honest, though, I'm a Botticelli diehard. Sometimes I dream I'm one of the dancers in Primavera. I owe a lot of own my work to dear Sandro. It's a pale comparison, I know, but sometimes I think I would have done well in the 15th century. At least I might have modelled, if not painted._

 

_I'm glad you liked the photograph. It was sent with good intentions. I was worried it might come off as pretentious. I just do better with imagery than words._

 

_I am okay. I give you my word I am. I won't lie to you and tell you I'm perfect. But the happiness, that's real. As I write this I'm sat under the stars on my apartment roof, free as a bird. It doesn't get much better. I am afraid of what will happen at the trial, but I know even the worst of things are only temporary. I will be fine._

 

_I want to ask you what happened, that made your day so bad, but I know you can't tell me. Even if you could, you don't know me from a hole in the wall. Just know I am thinking of you. Whatever happened, it wasn't your fault. I'm thinking of you and sending all the best thoughts across the sky to you. I may be the first person you've brought home, but I know I won't be the last. You have to remember that too, Spencer. There will be more good days. In the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson:_

 

_“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, “It will be happier.”_

 

_Tennyson was onto something there, I'm sure of it. We have to hope, to look forwards to the time ahead and believe there are good days waiting._

 

_Of course, he also wrote The Lady of Shallott, which is the singularly most depressing thing I've ever read, so maybe I'm making a bad case here with my choice of inspirational speaker._

 

_I just can't put into my own words how much I want you to have hope, Spencer. I know the magic of my rescue might wear off for you, but I also know I won't be the only one._

 

_Have hope tomorrow will be one of the good days._

 

_Yours, still,_

 

_Calliope x_

 

When the letter was posted the following morning, it took another photograph with it. A fresh Polaroid, taken at arms length, of Callie with her back to the glow of New York smiling into the lens, her platinum waves being lifted by the wind that rolled around skyscrapers and exhaled into the city. It wasn't an art shot, but she decided it was good enough. Another smile, a fresh reminder of the good he'd done in the world. She'd slipped it into the envelope and dropped the letter into a mailbox before she went to bed, knowing that had to be the last. She couldn't get him fired. It had to be the last…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to assure everyone, this fic will not be a back and forth of letters. I just wanted to give a turn on this, to set up the relationship between Callie and Spencer a little bit and have some breathing room as we go into the next 'act'. Next chapter I -promise- you some face to face. 
> 
> As usual, if you enjoyed, please comment/kudos, as it keeps me motivated to write more. Many thanks to those who already have!


	9. The Trial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a long one. Thanks all who have commented and Kudos', you're the best! It's half three in the morning right now and this is un-beta'd, so I hope it's okay! Please let me know if you enjoy <3

 

When the second letter arrived, Spencer had the presence of mind this time to leap upon it before any of his colleagues honed in on it. He’d spotted the light blue envelope as the guy from the mail room had approached and moved lightning quick to stash it in his top drawer under his desk, where it lay blissfully safe from prying eyes and the possibility of bringing disciplinary action down on his head. There it burned sunflower patterned musings in the back of his mind and had to remain when he was called out with the team on a case in Idaho.

 

It was July 22nd before he was finally back in the office at Quantico and able to retrieve it from it’s safe place. He didn’t make it as far as home to unseal it, unable to tolerate waiting another hour without knowing his one true success incarnate was alright. He’d tried to tell himself after he’d sent his own letter that he wouldn’t hear from Callie again, that her initial contact had just been her ruminating on paper for her own benefit. But once he’d seen that envelope he knew in the same way as he knew he needed water or air that he needed that reply.

 

And so he found himself perched on the back bench of his bus between Quantico and home, satchel tucked in close to his side, letter extracted from it’s envelope with the utmost of care. He read by the LED strip lights over his head, taking a rare moment to sit and let his eyes roam over the pages as opposed to simply downloading the information. He sat and mentally chewed over Callie’s words, feeling himself smile from time to time. She was trying so hard to prove she was alright...

 

His eyes glanced over her trial date and Spencer felt a swirl of guilt as he thought of why he’d sent his own letter. He’s done that because he’d needed to comfort himself over his own shortcomings. She had enough on her plate.

 

Still, though. She’d been quick to reply. The date at the head of the paper was only a few days after his own had been mailed...

 

The Polaroid of her in the glow of city light joined the first on the fridge.

 

She was frightened of going to court. He could understand that. What must it be like, to escape from the greatest evil you had ever been subjected to, only to then have to go back into a room with them and go over and over the suffering they had caused you..?

 

He sent his reply priority mail on his way to work the following morning.

 

* * *

 

 

By the time the August 5th came around, two more rounds of letters had been exchanged and Spencer felt an increasingly pressing mix of emotions around the fact.

 

They were about nothing really. They were harmless. That’s what he rationalised to himself when he hid them from his friends and locked them away in his home.  

 

She wrote about her day. He did not. She wrote about the painting she was working on. He wrote about Renaissance art history, since it seemed he’d piqued a particular interest. She wrote about New York. He wrote about DC. They both wrote about her recovery, and spared as few words as they could for Reuben Amado, an unspoken agreement between them it seemed that as long as they tried to steer clear of that, then they could continue to correspond, because then they weren’t really jeopardizing the trial, were they?

 

Reid reasoned it was cathartic for her to be speaking to someone. Trauma had to be allowed room to breathe and process, or PTSD would just loop in ever increasingly violent circles. Even though she’d already told him she had a therapist and he knew that if she needed to speak to someone, it most definitely shouldn’t be him.

 

He admonished himself that it was _him_ she was talking to. Quite aside from the awkward, pieced together social skills he had, he was too close to what had happened to her.

 

He justified to himself that few could have a better understanding of what happened to her. He was emotionally removed from the scenario, without the bruising that had clearly been left on her mother and probably her friends too. The students they’d interviewed had obviously thought the world of her. People spent years reeling after an attack on a cherished person, they treated them like glass, as if they might break when handled too roughly. She didn’t need to be treated like a victim. He was an impartial ear.

 

The increasing collection of photographs on his fridge were a blatant confirmation he was not impartial.

 

He had never been so grateful as he had the day the court summons had come through for Hotch and not him. As acting unit chief he would testify for the BAU. Garcia too, was expected to give her expert opinion on the technical aspects of Callie’s torture. Between them, they would present every horrific act and ritual he’d subjected her too before the jury and if there was any justice in the world Reuben Amado would never see sunlight again.  

 

Spencer, though, wouldn’t have to speak under oath. He used this to soothe a guilty conscience when he sent his last letter before leaving for New York. He hadn’t written that he was coming, not sure it would make any difference, really. The pages that passed between them would slow soon, and ultimately fritter out. They were bound to once Amado was in prison and she had some closure. Once she felt safe. Whatever this interaction was, it wasn’t a real friendship. It was some sort of surreptitious and developing co-dependency that would have to stop.

 

* * *

 

August 5th found him him uncomfortably hot by 9.am in New York’s unrelenting and pollution driven humidity, filtered into a bench behind Hotch and Garcia in the courtroom, his tie too tight around his throat. He hadn’t been required to come to the trial, but Hotch had offered him the spot on the plane, all too well aware that this case mattered the most. The chief had wanted to give him the chance to watch this one be put away after he’d held Callie Masterson’s arteries together in bare hands, though it had been said more professionally. It’d been proffered as an opportunity to see proof of the difference they made. Spencer had been tempted to say he’d already received proof, but had bitten his tongue and held it in.

 

This was the last thing to see her through okay. More than once her fear of being in this room had come up in the letters. He needed to be there, if only to reassure himself. He wouldn’t make a difference to the proceedings, but he _needed_ to be there.

 

When Amado was lead into the room he felt his heart fibrillate. This was the first time he’d gotten a proper look at him. He was enormous, shoulders broad, neck so thick with muscle it practically disappeared under his chin, brow drawn down to shadow beetle black eyes. His hands were thick too, calloused palms turned inwards by his cuffs. Reid thought he looked like a Silverback stuffed into a cheap suit and his stomach rolled at the thought of all that physical power crashing down onto Calliope’s frame, the smallness of her in her hospital bed blaring at him from his frontal lobe. God, if they had been just a few seconds later…

 

Garcia was saying something to Hotch, but Spencer couldn’t make out the words. He was still staring at Amado, Callie’s scars glaring out at him from the photo in the park, everything else in the room blurred to nothingness.

 

He didn’t even notice when a side door opened and a pale little figure was guided in by a woman in a sharply cut suit and killer stilettos, the attorney cutting a path through the tension that was weighing the courtroom air to allow Callie to walk in her wake and catch her breath. It was only when the room was called to order and he stood that his attention was broken and he caught sight of her in the periphery of his vision, stood shoulder to shoulder with her attorney, head held high to allow him to see the curve of her cheek and tip of her lashes , too far to catch any real expression in the slither of her profile. Her posture spoke volumes though. She refused to show fear.

 

The first day the bulk of the circumstantial evidence was presented. The drawings they had seized were among it, along with the invoices, Amado’s mental health history and some relayed character witness statements. The prosecutor used it to try and paint the exact timeline and intent behind Calliope’s abduction. The defence argued Calliope may have provoked Amado and an attack was inevitable by someone due to certain life choices, heavily leaning on the life modelling. Spencer felt sick at the insinuation she somehow deserved what had been done and Garcia had looked ready to spit blood on behalf of women everywhere.

 

The second day Hotch and Garcia were called upon to testify, alongside other experts. Psychiatrists both for defence and prosecution. The idea of a lack of mental culpability was bandied about. It wasn’t an insanity plea, but it was in the same wheelhouse. Garcia had sharply pointed out that Amado’s attempt at a live snuff event that was heavily encrypted to avoid detection quite clearly showed he knew exactly what he was doing.

 

Day three they were shown some of the footage. Spencer watched from his just slightly too far back seat as Callie stared at the screen, her face grey as her recorded screams rang around the room. At one point her attorney took her hand. Session was ended early that day.

 

Day four, in the morning Amado was called on to testify. His lawyer helped paint a picture of an extremely mentally unstable man and no-one could really argue with that, but Hotch’s jaw noticeably twitched as they tried to claim he was too far lost to his delusions to understand right and wrong.

 

In the afternoon, Calliope was called to the stand. Spencer saw her cast a look back at her mother when she stood, the older woman nodding to encourage her. The bailiff helped her to the seat and finally, as she took her oath, her eyes landed on him.

 

The was the tiniest, reflexive curl of her fingers in her raised hand, but she finished the oath without faltering, eyes locked on him. When she sank into the seat Spencer risked the most imperceptible of smiles in a bid to encourage her. She didn’t smile back but he thought her pupils might have dilated and when she took her next breath it was slow and measured, the tension in her easing.

 

When she spoke, she looked at Amado dead on. He met her eye without a flicker of emotion in his face, but Callie didn’t buckle. She was unflinching as she recounted the full extent of the pain and fear she was subjected to. At one point she was requested to rise and she took off her charcoal grey blazer to hold her arms out and show the jury in the flesh the damage she’d been left with. She maintained her poise when under cross examination she was accused of baiting and tormenting a sick man, even if her eyes glassed over.

 

She pulled out a cue-card for her impact statement, yellow paper perched between her fingers, but didn’t actually read from it, her clear blue eyes boring down on Amado as she closed;

 

“I was told that you did what you did to me because you can’t feel and you were trying to. Other people might hate you, but I want to tell you I pity you. I’m sorry that you can’t experience joy, or pleasure, or love. I can’t imagine what that’s like. It was wrong of you, though, to try and steal that from me. I do feel joy and I do feel pleasure and I do feel love, and I will not stop doing that because of you. I hope you get the help you need. I hope you’re not allowed to hurt anyone else. I hope that you find some kind of peace, even if you can’t feel anything else. I don’t hate you. I feel sorry for you. But I don’t believe you should be free…”

 

She was escorted from the room before Spencer could meet her eye again, taken somewhere private for what had to be an inevitable breakdown after the gruelling hours she’d spent in that chair.

 

It took the jury less than an hour to convict on day five. Sentence was recommended as life in a maximum security facility. But that would be a decision that would be made another day. Amado had been held accountable and would be put away far from Callie, leaving her truly free, finally.

 

There was no jubilation on her face as the verdict was read, just a palpable relief, a stillness that settled over her and smoothed out her exhausted features, eyes sliding closed as friends and family who’d sat behind her throughout the week congratulated them.

 

Spencer had hoped to speak to her, if only for a moment, but didn’t get the chance, swept out of the room with Hotch and Garcia and the rest of the crowd. Outside in the hall there were journalists waiting. Reid moved across the corridor to get some breathing room, finding himself alone as Hotch went outside the building to make the phone call for their flight and Garcia ducked into a bathroom.

 

Callie was accosted by the journalists the moment she stepped out of the doors. Her attorney quickly stepped in and gave her a shield, fielding questions to allow her to slip away, Reid watching with a frown as she hurried down the hall out of the courthouse alone, her head bent low. After a moment’s serious deliberation with himself, he moved to follow and hurried down the flagstone steps outside, eyes casting about to search for her, feeling the beginnings of panic at the congestion of other people. She shouldn’t be alone right now, not with everythi-

 

She was sat on the foot of one of the great columns lining the front of the courthouse building, forearms rest on her thighs, head bent low. Spencer watched her a moment. It’d been a lot…

 

Hands wrapped around the strap of his satchel to give himself something to do with them, he approached her slowly, moving to sit on the step beside her, a few respectful inches between them, and waited.

 

Silver blonde waves lifted and icy eyes peered out from beneath them, warmed after a moment with the slow beginnings of a weary smile.

 

“Hi…”

 

Reid offered a careful smile back, his hands moving to tuck under his thighs on the step.

 

“Hi.”

 

Several slow, quiet beats passed.

 

“Are you allowed to talk to me now..?”

 

“I believe so, yes. It’s over, Miss Masterson. He’s going to prison.”

 

Her eyebrows arched at the formality. This had been easier on paper. When she spoke, it was very soft;

 

“I thought I might feel something. Some sort of victory. But I don’t. I just feel sad. He _is_ sick…”

 

“He is,” Spencer murmured with the beginnings of a frown and a shake of his head. Perhaps she had bounced back too fast after all… “But he hurt you. And- and what you said was right. He can’t be allowed to hurt anyone else…”

 

Callie nodded and let out a soft sigh, folding her arms to rest her elbows into her thighs, gazing out at the passing traffic below.

 

“Thank you for coming, Doctor Reid. You didn’t have to.”

 

The title stung more than it should have.

 

“Calliope, I.. I know how hard this was for you… I know you have your mom and everyone else, but I wanted to be here for you, to finish this…” Reid kept his voice very low, hyper aware that Hotch might be nearby. If he’d been someone else he might have reached out and touched her, but he wasn’t, he was himself, and he didn’t know how to try and express what he meant without coming across as grossly inappropriate. Pale blue eyes lifted back up to his face and when she smiled this time for a moment the true depth of the wounds Amado had made below just her skin showed in her face, her voice wavering as she whispered,

 

“I was so relieved when I saw you… I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but your voice came back to me again...”

 

“You did great,” Spencer breathed in reply, nodding slowly. “It’s over. It is. I promise you, he is never getting out. If I have to go to the parole meetings myself to make sure of it, I will. You’re safe.”

 

Callie stared at him, then swallowed and nodded slowly, wiping under her eyes with her fingertips before she could cry.

 

“I’m sorry about the letters.”

 

“I’m not,” Spencer replied before even thinking about it. This bought him another smile, a real one, her fair face lighting up. He felt an unpleasant stomach lurch. That smile. Had he thought it was beautiful before?

 

“Are you going to be okay?”

 

The question had come from Callie, not him. Spencer nodded on autopilot. Callie watched him, then smiled again, this one more tired than the last.

 

“I’m guessing I can’t buy you a coffee, can I…?” she said softly, shifting in her seat slightly to more bodily face him. Spencer’s eyes widened at the question before he could catch himself, and he shook his head after a moment, casting a quick glance over his shoulder as if Hotch might suddenly have materialised behind him.

 

“I, uh, I have to go back to Quantico…”

 

She nodded again, eyes meeting his when he turned back, something sad in them.

 

“I know. Thank, you, Spencer. Honestly. Thank you for everything.”

 

“Calliope-”

 

“I know, don’t thank you. You say that every time. I can’t help it. I- It’s not just that you saved me, you’re the only person who hasn’t treated me like a victim this whole time. I needed that…” she whispered  and dropped her gaze back into her lap, roping her fingers together. Spencer thought about taking her hand, but didn’t.

 

“You’re not a victim. You’re Calliope, and you’re going to be fine…”

 

He flinched when she hugged him. It was too quick to immediately register what was happening, just suddenly there was warmth and pressure and the smell of orange blossom in her hair. When he found himself enough to hug her in return the hold was almost delicate, a hard won fight against the instinct to pull her in tight against his chest. He’d never been hugged like that. It twisted him in knots to let her go. But she didn’t need anyone to shelter her, least of all him.

 

When it was over and she pulled away she looked calmer. She got to her feet first, Spencer feeling an unfamiliar sort of loss at the break of contact.

 

“I should let you go. You’ve done more than enough for me. Thank you, Doctor Reid.”

 

She was drawing a line again. For whose benefit he wasn’t sure, but Reid felt it like a kick in the ribs. He’d been right. This wasn’t a real friendship. She didn’t need him anymore.

 

“Reid!”

 

Hotch’s voice carried over the steps and they both looked up to see him waving the younger agent over, his phone still pressed to his ear.

 

“I think that’s my ride,” he murmured and looked down at her with a smile that felt utterly forced. She nodded, and held out her hand, but he couldn’t shake it. When she realised it wasn’t happening she tucked her fingers in her pants pocket.

 

“Safe flight…” It was a simple farewell, but her voice wavered, full of the weight of everything the last week had put upon her. Reid wished more than anything he’d gone for coffee. This all felt very finite.

 

“Goodbye, Miss Masterson.”

 

He didn’t touch her again before he left, just span on his heel. Hotch didn’t question what they’d been discussing, and Reid hoped it was because he just didn’t have the energy to even consider the word ‘mistrial’. The flight home was uneventful and over soon. When he got to his apartment Reid looked at the photographs on his fridge and after a full five minutes he took them down.


	10. The Number

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Robert Frost has been quoted to death. I know >.< All I can do is apologise. It _always_ makes me think of Reid. As always, thank you for the Kudos/Comments, they're awesome and keep me motivated to finish this thing long term!

August rolled on. No more letters.

 

Spencer felt the loss of them more acutely than he knew he should have. In the short time they’d been exchanged he’d come to just expect them, something to look forward to when he rose out of the darkness his job dragged him down into. He had liked hearing Callie’s voice through those pages.

 

September brought Gideon back and with it some relief from the crushing differentness Spencer felt in his daily life. Gideon was an old soul, and had a sense of perspective that the young agent had relied on heavily during his first days at the BAU. Losing him to the fallout of the Boston bombings had hit the department hard. Having him back, though, injected a warmth back into Spencer’s life that he hadn’t quite realised how much he’d missed. They would play chess, discuss philosophy and history and the consciences of men while the others would sleep on the jet after jobs. On his birthday Gideon had facilitated his first date in- well in ever. JJ was pretty and the football game had gone well enough, but nothing significant had happened. It sort of felt like going out with his sister. Still, Gideon encouraged him and about a month after his return to the BAU, coming home from the successful rescue of a high profile attorney’s abducted daughter, Spender told him about Calliope. Gideon had listened in silence, a knowing look in his eye, and the following Monday presented him with a leather bound book full of blank pages, explaining that it was only a good thing when the letters stopped, because it meant life had begun again. Spencer had taken the photographs from their locked drawer where they’d been hidden and pressed the one of her blowing out her birthday candles onto page one, just as he’d promised himself. Patricia Davenport went on page two.

 

Mid November the blue envelope landed on his desk. The postage stamp was a lotus this time.

 

He made it to the bathroom before he opened it, hiding in a stall like a teenager. The second he saw the handwriting he released a breath he had no idea he’d been holding the last three months.

 

_Dear Spencer,_

 

_I thought long and hard about writing this. After seeing you at the trial, I told myself I wouldn’t do this to you again. It wasn’t fair, to put the kind of pressure it seems I put on you by writing. You’d done your job._

 

_I had just wanted to let you know I was okay. I don’t remember much of what was done to me, in those last days. But I remember looking up at you. I told you I knew what I saw in you, even though you were a stranger. That moment will be in my mind, as long as I live; I saw how scared you were. You were more scared than I had ever been in that place. I know that, right down in my bones._

 

_That’s what’s haunting me. That’s why I wrote. It wasn’t for catharsis or to treat you like some sort of therapist. I know that’s probably why you wrote back. But that’s never what it was about._

 

_I have never seen fear like that in my life._

 

_I had to let you know I was okay. I had to let you know everything was good. I had to tell you over and over again. I had to show you proof. But when I saw you in New York, I realised, you thought I was damaged. The things you said in your letters, I kinda guessed it, but on the steps I knew it for sure._

 

_I never wanted you to feel beholden to me. I wanted to help you._

 

 _Because it_ _is_ _over for me. Amado was sentenced on Friday, he’s been given forty to life. Even if he makes it to a parole hearing in forty years, I’ve got those recordings, and I’ll go myself to the hearing, in my granny pants, and show them to the parole board. I know he’s gone._

 

_But you were still scared for me. How many other people do you have to be scared for, Spencer? You can let me go. I promise. You can stop saving me now. I wanted to write you one last time, to tell you that in black and white, once I had concrete proof that man was in a cage somewhere. You don’t have to rescue me anymore._

 

_I don’t ever want to see fear like that again. I can’t bear the thought of you carrying it around, like a stone in the pit of your stomach. You can’t be much older than I am. That’s too much weight for you._

 

_I took one last photograph for you, for the road. I don’t know if you actually wanted any of them, but I always told you I was better with imagery than words._

 

_Yours for all the life I’ve yet to live,_

 

_Calliope x_

  


Spencer’s teeth grazed across his lower lip, eyes itching. She could have been in the BAU herself. His thumb brushed the space under her name before he reached back into the envelope and drew out the customary Polaroid inside. It took a moment to figure out what he was seeing, because it wasn’t a self portrait this time. It was a paper coffee cup, writing on it and he smiled a bittersweet sort of smile when he read the words;

 

_If you ever change your mind: 212-519-6631_

 

* * *

 

November 27th. The small hours of the morning. Still more night than day.

 

Callie hadn’t been to bed yet. She sat perched on a stool in her underwear and one of her father’s old button downs that she’d had since a child, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, the same painting smock she’d used her whole life. Ash waves were tousled up on top of her head in a loose bun, the soft keys of Einaudi’s ‘Nuvole Bianche’ dancing through the air of her apartment while she leaned closer to her easel, fingers smudged with titanium white. Tongue between her teeth, toes curled against the wooden footrest of her stool, she carefully dabbed the tip of her brush to the pupils of the child’s portrait she was working on, giving life to the eyes. It was one of her better pieces, she’d decided; a Christmas gift commissioned by the father for the mother, their little one to be immortalised in a sylphen wash of pale pinks and lilacs, all laughing eyes and gapped teeth. She was a pretty little thing and Callie had enjoyed working on her enough to forgo sleep and finish up while the creative waters were running.

 

As the piano spiralled towards it’s crescendo she leaned back in her seat, tilting to inspect her work. It needed a few more highlights but the last layers of rosy hues were still too wet. Coffee o’clock.

 

She dropped the paintbrush into a jaw of water and hopped down from her stool, moving to set the percolator running when she heard her phone buzz behind her. Flicking the coffee maker on once it was filled with fresh grounds, she glanced at the clock on her microwave. It was gone two. Surely normal human beings were asleep by now?

 

She wiped her hands down the front of the shirt before she picked the cell up off the kitchen countertop, the number beside the envelope icon not one registered to her phonebook. Tapping it open with the beginnings of a frown, she let out a breath that might have been a laugh when she read the message:

 

_NYC is a very long way for coffee. Is it that good? SR_

 

While hers bubbled behind her she fired back a quick reply;

 

_The best. We have Italians. Why are you still up? C x_

 

She’d barely put her phone down before it buzzed again. Once she’d filled a mug and poured enough cream and sugar in it to induce diabetes, she moved with her phone to her beanbags, settling it for a break while the painting dried enough to be workable again.

 

_Sorry. I didn’t think you would be. Did I wake you? SR_

 

_No. And that’s not an answer. C x_

 

_Long day. I got your letter. I was going to write you back but I’ve not been home. SR_

 

_Yeah, I guessed so, with the nocturnal texting. Are you okay? C x_

 

A reply didn’t come through until she was halfway through her mug, the coffee starting to cool some.

 

_Just a long day._

 

Calliope stared down at the screen. The painting could wait.

 

She dialled out, feeling her stomach tighten as she did, not sure what she was doing. What if he didn’t pick up?

 

After four rings she heard a slightly startled voice on the other end of the line.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Hi…”

 

“Calliope, I- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.” Callie bit the inside of her cheek as she heard him backpedalling, her feet slipping underneath one of the cushions on the floor. He sounded drained.

 

“You’re not. I was up. What’s going on?”

 

There was a long pause and she sipped her coffee, waiting patiently.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“What in the world for..?”

 

“Your letter. You weren’t wrong… I meant to write back, though I did. But with work, I just-” He trailed off and Calliope frowned at her reflection in the window, able to hear in the silence something trying to burst it’s way out of him.

 

“Spencer…” she breathed, shuffling to sit up higher, the beanbag moulding beneath her. “It’s almost three am. You could have still written, but you text... Talk to me. What happened today?”

 

Another pause. Callie pressed her lips together tight, holding her breath. Finally, he broke the silence;

 

“I can’t. It’s not that I don’t want to, just from a perspective of confidentiality and professional integrity-”

 

“It’s okay. It’s okay...” Callie breathed, trying to soothe him if she could as she listened to him spiral. “I get it. Protocol. It’s okay…”

 

There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the phone and she felt a surge of sympathy. He wanted to talk so badly, that much was clear.

 

“Are you still working?” she asked gently, setting her mug down on the floor to curl up on her side amongst the cushions so she was facing the city.

 

“No. I got home a couple of hours ago.”

 

“Can’t sleep though?”

 

“No...”

 

“That’s okay. I’m kind of a night owl. But you probably already knew that about me, Doctor Profiler.”

 

She thought she heard a laugh. There. Better.

 

“Actually, ‘profiler’ isn’t a real job title. It’s Supervisory Special Agent.”

 

“Hm. That’s a bit of a mouthful. I think I prefer Spencer.”

 

Another exhale that carried undertones of laughter in it. Callie hoped to God he was smiling. It fell silent again, until she eventually broke it;

 

“How’s Virginia?”

 

“Wet. How’s New York?”

 

“Cold. The tourists are going to start coming in soon. The tree outside the Rockefeller goes up next week.”

 

“Christmas. Wow. That came around fast. You know, Oysters Rockefeller were named after the man who commissioned the Centre. It’s a common misconception that he requested the dish at a restaurant and it was named after him, but in fact the chef who invented it named it after the family because of the dish’s excessive richness. It’s a shellfish satire.”

 

Callie let out a soft laugh, and rolled again, onto her back, gaze on her ceiling, her legs stretched out across the pile of pillows beneath her.

 

“You do that on paper too. How do you know this stuff?”

 

There was a tangible shift in the air, even over the phone. Callie felt it, her eyebrows lifting slightly as Spencer said almost reluctantly,

 

“I read a lot.”

 

“Where were you during my college trivia nights?”

 

“Probably in my dorm at the Academy.”

 

“It was a rhetorical question, Spencer,” she breathed with a soft laugh and heard his own awkward hint of one in return.

 

“That’s an accurate answer, though.”

 

Calliope smiled slightly up at her ceiling, running her free hand over her hair

 

“I missed talking to you. Writing, I mean. I- I honestly just thought it would be better if I stopped.” she breathed, fingers curling in her waves as she spoke.

 

“I missed it too,” came the quiet reply, and a moment’s hesitation before he added, “I suppose I just thought you’d closed a door on things, after the trial...”

 

“I didn’t want you to feel obligated to me…” she murmured, feeling some warmth seep into her cheeks as she spoke.

 

“I didn’t. Actually- it was uh… it was nice. Nobody writes letters anymore. Except me. And you.”

 

“Hm… A letter always seemed to me like immortality, because it is the mind alone, without corporeal friend…”

 

“Emily Dickinson.”

 

Calliope smiled at the instant recognition, her eyes sliding closed.She heard Spencer yawn down the phone, echoing it with a soft one of her own, before she murmured,

 

“Go to bed. We can quote poetry some other day.”

 

“Sorry,” said the sheepish voice at the other end of the phone, but she shook her head to herself and replied,

 

“Don’t be. You should sleep. Go to bed. Dream of sweet nothings. Or I’ll start on the Robert Frost.”

 

He laughed. Properly. Then yawned again, mumbling through the exhale,

 

“Miles and miles to go before I sleep…”

 

“Not tonight, doctor. Go.”

 

“I’ll write you.”

 

“I’ll wait.”

 

She never made it back to the painting. Instead she fell asleep amongst the beanbags and cushions, dreaming of snowy woodlands, Spencer’s voice reciting to her.

 

_The woods are lovely, dark and deep…._


	11. The City

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, thank you so very much for the Kudos and Comments. This is the most I have written in a very, very long time, largely due to a lack of confidence, so thank you so much to all of you sweet enough to stop by. This chapter is something of a transitional one. I didn't want to get into the habit of recapping/interacting with every single case, but I have referenced a couple here to help essentially time stamp some things. So yeah. I hope it's okay. I -struggled- with this one.

“It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.” ―  **John Joseph Powell**

 

What had been a trickle turned into a stream. Flood was too generous, but the letters turned to one or two a week after that, the back and forth between Spencer and Calliope finding a rhythm. After the phone call Spencer had made sure he’d enclosed his apartment address as opposed to going through the BAU mail, suspecting that a line cross such as this one might be more forgivable if done outside of the official channels. His poker face was excellent, in his blood thanks to his birthplace, but Morgan was inquisitive by nature and he’d clocked a periwinkle envelope for the second time early December. 

 

Occasionally photographs still came through; one of Calliope from behind, seemingly unaware it was being taken, stood in the snow in Central Park watching the sun set and wash the ground in red and gold; another of her with the familiar face of her student Melissa, the pair of them in profile, Callie with her shirt sleeves rolled up to her elbows and hair in her eyes as she guided the younger girl in making a mark on the canvas before her, her nose crinkled in concentration. The scars were turning silver, bit by bit. The pictures always had the same caption underneath;  _ Because of Spencer _ . 

 

Sometimes there were sketches, little doodlings that lined the bottom of her pages and overlapped her words, of famous landmarks and skylines from the city she called home. Spencer had been particularly impressed by the inked Chrysler Building that had filled an entire back of a page, with the explanation that she’d sat in it’s shadow outside a coffee shop while she wrote and thought he might like to see it. 

 

Reid occasionally wondered if he should send a photograph back, but knew it didn’t hold the same meaning as the vivid flashes of  _ living _ Calliope gifted him with. Instead, he started to sign off with slithers of poetry, reasoning after their telephone call her interest in the arts stretched beyond canvas and paint. Sometimes borrowing other people’s words was easier than trying to summarise the rampant, rapid fire series of thoughts he carried with him day to day on his own. She must have taken to it, for the first time he did it he scribbled under his signature,

 

_ “ _ _ I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word _ _ ,” _ and when Calliope replied, she completed the stanza;

 

_ “ _ _ Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine _ _ ,”  _ embellished with a postscript in the shape of a tiny string of ink stars. He’d smiled at that and idly thought his mother might have liked her, in a different lifetime. 

 

Over time, when work and distance prevented writing, they began to ease into texting. Spencer found it clunky and in truth a touch uncomfortable at first, lacking the personalisms of letter writing. He was also hyper conscious of his phone attracting the wrong sort of attention. While he was technically no longer doing anything wrong, there were some things that should be private in his mind. His social life was far too often the subject of other people’s conversations, and Calliope would be a font for gossip simply by being her. 

 

Still, the texts gave him an advantage in a scenario he had never really experienced outside his team before; someone wanting to know he was okay. Calliope never asked for details of the cases, or even where he was going. She did ask though that occasionally he let her know he was still on the same planet as her. She knew the job better than most outside the BAU thanks to her own experiences, and after he’d been radio silent for eight days during a trip to Tennessee mid-December, she had gently explained in her letter that followed she had thought something might have happened to him. 

 

It was a totally alien experience, to have someone be conscious if he was ‘missing’ outside work. His reply had been full of awkward apologies and assurances he was fine. After that, he made a point when out on a case he would send a text wishing her goodnight, even if was at some ungodly hour. Callie in turn took to wishing him good morning when she woke, and both knew the other was okay. 

 

Christmas came and went. Calliope sent novelty socks and a Polaroid of herself with the camera held low, so that above the entirety of the Rockefeller tree could be seen looming behind her, scarf pulled up so high only smiling eyes were visible. Spencer sent  a pocket sized sketchbook, a message in the front cover that next time she drew someone's portrait, she might like to know every atom in that face had once been part of an exploding star. 

 

The phone calls were very rare and Calliope would be the one to dial. Spencer could never bring himself to actually press the button to speak with her, knowing he did better in the written word where his mind couldn't bypass his tongue and social filters. He was too afraid of invading and shattering the spun glass friendship they'd formed. But she would call him sometimes, usually off the back of a stiff text chain and a particularly gruelling case. They didn't talk about work, just talked. He didn't want her to have to hear about the things he saw or the nightmares it gave him, not after everything she'd been through. She should be protected from that. Still, she sometimes just seemed to know he needed to hear a voice other than his own in the small hours, when sleep was nowhere to be found between memory and anxiety. She'd tell him about her day, or her students, or a book she'd read, and he would listen in grateful silence, wishing he trusted himself enough to share in return. Once she'd asked about how he'd spent Christmas day. He'd made a mumbled comment about Nevada and changed subject quickly, not knowing how to tell anyone that on Christmas he'd not been able to face walking into his mother's sanatorium and stood outside, clutching an illustrated copy of Twelfth Night pressed with 18th century lithographs, physically incapable of going inside to hand it to her. 

 

Things changed in the January. Spencer had watched as Gideon tried desperately to save Sarah Jean Dawes. He'd been there, at his side, as the true horror of how innocent she was unfolded in the last hours of her life. Watched Gideon plead with her, tried to help where he could, appealing to her that ignorance was not the same as guilt. Watched as she denied and denied her son's survival, until Gideon had finally given into her wishes to allow the boy to be spared the truth of his heritage. An innocent woman had gone to the chair, and they had let her, for the sake of her child. 

 

On the plane home, the vomiting had resurfaced. He’d seen bloody murder and torture and unspeakable things done by one person to another, but this is what tipped him over the edge. When he’d crumpled into his seat after he’d washed his face, Gideon moved to sit opposite him, dark eyes hollow in his weathered face, staring out of the window at the dawning sky. They’d sat in silence for a long while, until Gideon had murmured, 

 

“Call her.”

 

He’d closed his eyes after that and not another word had been spoken about it, though Spencer had felt his stomach drop away somewhere well beneath the jet’s vapour trails. There was a reason that Gideon was the best the BAU had to offer…

 

That night he had crawled into his bed and curled into a ball under his blankets,  pulling them over his head before he’d dialled out, as if the woolen coverlet might offer Callie some sort of shelter from what he was about to disclose to her. She’d answered with a surprised greeting, well aware he never called her, the sound of a Chopin prelude in the background, and he’d smiled wearily. She was painting… 

 

He’d talked until the sky turned from black to grey outside, rain running down the glass of his bedroom window. Calliope had listened without judgement or opinion as the crack widened into a maw and he spilled everything that had happened with Sarah Jean Dawes. When he was hoarse from emotion and overuse of his voice, she’d told him softly,

 

“Nothing is so sacred as a mother’s love…” and offered to fly out to DC, if he wanted. He said no, because it seemed like the done thing to say, and because he wasn’t sure what to make of such an offer. He’d fallen asleep to her reciting The Lady of Shalott just to give him the sound of her voice, and he’d dreamed of Sarah Jean laying at rest in a boat on silver waters, nestled amongst the tapestry of Riley’s life. 

 

After that he became a little freer with the truth. He still swore to shelter her from every evil he encountered if he could, but sometimes he would call her too, explaining today was one of the less good days. She'd listen to him share as much or as little as he wished, or nothing at all, if he couldn't manage it. One night when he couldn’t speak she had climbed out onto the roof of her apartment and described the view.

 

By early spring, when the ground was still frozen in the mornings but the afternoon sun held promise of warmth soon, he’d plucked up the courage to buy a frame for one of the photographs, reasoning with himself she was probably an actual a friend now and he could afford some sentiment. He chose the one of her sat in the New York night lights and it lived on his desk so he could glance at it in between paragraphs when he wrote. 

 

Mid March the first case came up that had shaken him in a while. A shooter in New York City. Not wanting to cause undue panic, he had sent a text asking Calliope to stay away from Manhattan for a few days and swearing her to secrecy at the same time before they’d even boarded the plane. Ever trusting, her reply had simply been,

 

_ Okay, I promise. _

 

On the jet he tried not to think about the fact that they would be in the same city. He was there to work. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. He made chitchat about looking forwards to seeing New York and felt his chest tighten as Hotch mentioned something along the lines of him needing to take some vacation days. Gideon had very carefully kept his gaze on his newspaper while this conversation went on around him. 

 

While they pursued the unsub and tried to bring down the spate of violent vigilantism he was raining down on the borough, Spencer tried not to think outside the case. Still, on trips to the bathroom he would message Calliope religiously, each time she replied she was still home and fine allowing him to breathe again. Once they realised the victimology involved acquitted potential criminals, he relaxed properly and was able to hone in on the work, knowing for a fact she was not the perpetrator's type. 

 

They didn’t get a successful arrest. Cop killers rarely made it to the precinct in handcuffs. Bodybags were far more likely. Marvin Doyle may not have had police blood on his hands but he’d been indirectly responsible for the death of that officer. He was never going to be allowed to walk out of that apartment, Gideon told him afterwards. 

 

On the ride back to the station for debriefing his phone was burning a hole in his pocket, he wanted so badly to let Calliope know it was safe. When he reached the bathroom he found she’d already messaged him.

 

_ I saw it on the news. _

 

He had been about to reply when Gideon had walked in to find him cell in hand, hips leaned back against the sink. He’d stared a moment, then walked out again. Heart hammering against his sternum, Spencer had quickly washed his hands even though there was no need, taking the moment to settle his breath before he walked out with his very best Texas Hold’em expression. When he emerged into the briefing room they’d been working out of it was to find Hotch reluctantly agreeing to something with Gideon, his mentor flashing a glance over the chief’s shoulder to look right at him with what had to be the smuggest hint of a smile Reid had ever seen. After the debrief Jason had ushered him out of the room while the others started packing up files, muttering under his breath,

 

“I just bought you forty eight hours vacation time. You have to be in for eight on Monday, but as far as they’re concerned you and I are doing a museum tour of the city for the weekend.  I checked with Garcia, you haven’t take any leave in the last eight months. We’ll have to make our own way back to DC, but for the next two days your time is your own. I will be in the Metropolitan if you get into trouble. Don’t be too naive, don’t get too lost, make sure you pick up the tab at least the first time, it’s just good manners. Don’t call her until you’re at least three blocks from here, if you ever want to have any peace again.”

 

That’s how he found himself on the corner of 5th and Main, Gideon on one side of heaving pavement, waiting and pretending he wasn’t watching, making eyes at the map of the city instead, while Spencer stood on the other side and dialled the only number outside of his team or his mother’s hospital he called, feeling a little lightheaded over what he was doing. When the call connected he felt himself smile in spite of the surrealness of his circumstances, cupping his free hand around the mouthpiece of the cell to better be heard over the city.

 

“Calliope, I- hi…”

 

“Hey. Say it…”

 

“I um, I’m in the city.”

 

“Where are you?”

 

Gideon waited until he saw the small figure jogging down the sidewalk a quarter of an hour later, weaving her way through the other bodies thronged on the pavement, a wisp of pale hair and bright skin wrapped in a dove grey afghan against the still cool air of the city. She stopped perhaps ten feet short of Reid who stood looking too small for his own body, hands in his pockets and a sheepish smile on his face as he saw her. For a moment he thought they might hug, but turned away to make his way towards the Metro Museum before he could find out. He’d been in the kid’s head enough for one day, he didn’t need to know either way. 

 

Callie was breathless when she stopped, cheeks pink from wind and the run. She roped her hands into the tips of her shawl as she looked up at him, a couple of pedestrians passing between them, and Spencer took a moment to just study her as if seeing her for the first time, feeling his stomach twist. It was as if the last few months of letters and calls hadn’t been real right up until this moment. 

 

“Hi…”

 

“Hi…”


	12. The Coffee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update time! Apologies for the delay on this chapter, I was at London comicon for the weekend, hehe. As usual, thank you all for stopping by. Feedback always appreciated, so please do leave a comment, if you liked or even if you didn't!

Spencer truly lost all comprehension of time as they stood there looking at one another, the seconds pulling on, a fine, golden string between the two of them it seemed. Calliope was the one who moved first, her windbrushed face lighting up with a warm, if slightly apprehensive smile. As another pedestrian cut between them she finally swerved and stepped forwards to close the gap, hands disappearing into the pockets of her forest green coat as she peered up at him.

 

“Of all the gin joints in all the world... “ 

 

Spencer eased into a grin at this, his eyebrows raised.

 

“That’s a more foreboding greeting than I’d hoped for.” 

 

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to ditch you on an airstrip somewhere.” Callie smiled again, her head tilt slightly to the left as she looked up at him. “Are we on first name terms now?” Spencer just nodded, meeting her gaze as he looked down at her in turn. She looked different somehow, and yet still the same. Her hair was longer, brushing her shoulders. No, not that. Was it just that she wasn’t a ‘work thing’ now? He had a good dozen photographs of her, but this was different in a way that was too subtle to be definable. 

 

“Okay. Good,” she breathed and smiled again. Callie was inspecting him too, her blue eyes locked on his face, taking careful note of everything. That voice, that’d been there for months. Here he was. He was taller than she had remembered... “So then. Spencer. About that coffee. Is now good for you..?”

 

“I would like that,” he replied, head twitching in a nod. His reward for this agreement was another of those smiles, a dimple flickering in her left cheek. She turned at the hip back towards the way she'd come from, eyes cast over her shoulder to look back at him as she took a couple of steps and said, 

 

“Do you trust my tastes?” 

 

“Absolutely.”

 

The pair fell into step with one another, Callie with her eyes flickering between the path she was navigating for them down the congested sidewalk and her companion, coy smiles shared between them each time they met one another's gaze. After a couple of minutes and the danger of the silence setting in too uncomfortably deep, the little blonde let out a breath of a laugh and shrugged narrow shoulders,taking it upon herself to be the one to end it;

 

“Ok. Elephant in the room moment. This is a little awkward, right? I mean, we're two adults and I talk to you more than I talk to my mother, but this is a weird moment, isn't it?”

 

Spencer felt his insides contract, his tongue curling against the roof of his mouth, old instincts kicking in as he grappled for a response. Before he could say anything aloud Calliope reached out and hooked her fingers through the crook of his elbow, looking away from him to turn them down off the main boulevard and into a narrower street, the block lined with independent, boutique businesses. The trajectory change was enough to jar an answer loose, Spencer's eyes fixated on the hand on his arm while her attention was more concerned with preventing them from bumping into other pedestrians;

 

“According to some sociological studies, written communication gives a certain anonymity that allows people to express themselves more freely and openly than in person. Visual cues are missing from input such as body language and facial expressions, so people have a tendency to overshare on paper in order to compensate, because they are free from the immediate judgement of the receiver. This can then result in a latent sense of impropriety when met face to face with the receiving party, because some social boundaries may have been crossed that wouldn't be in person.”

 

Calliope paused at this, pulling them both to a stop on the pavement, looking up at him with a quizzical smirk, her head tilt as she peered up at him. Spencer felt his ears warm. 

 

“Yes. It's sort of awkward. Sorry.”

 

“Don't be. I just wanted to be sure we were on the same page. And now no elephants.”

 

She let go of his arm when she began walking again, the matter apparently dealt with at that, her hands returned to the pockets of her parka. Spencer was mindful to keep his pace to hers, two of her steps easily fitting inside one of his own, the air at least a bit clearer between them. 

 

“How long do you have?” Calliope asked as they wandered, a little twitch of her head shaking her hair away from her eyes as she peered up at him. 

 

“Um, until Sunday, all being well. You never really know, even vacation days can suddenly not be,” Spencer replied, his eyebrows lifting slightly when he saw Calliope's beaming expression at his answer. 

 

“You're going to sight see then, right? Two days isn't a lot, but you can fit the big stuff in. Or there's always the nichey things, little museums and private galleries. I can write you a list, if you want. I know a couple of really good supper clubs.”

 

“I hadn't really thought that far ahead. I knew about the weekend about ten minutes before you did,” was the reply and Spencer felt another flush of warmth in his ears, knowing he hadn't thought further than seeing her in person. 

 

“Well, I suppose start with coffee and see where the wind takes you, hm?” Her words were soft, smile almost reserved, and he suddenly wondered if he'd crossed a boundary. 

 

“I won't keep you long.”

 

“I don't mind. I'm yours as long as you want me.” 

 

Spencer didn't get a chance to see her face with that. She was already turning into a narrow doorway, pushing against heavy glass to swing the door open and let herself through to the warm, aromatic space of the coffee shop beyond. It took him a few seconds to follow, suddenly feeling very lost and out of his element. She looked back with a hint of a laugh and held her hand out to wiggle her fingers at him, beckoning him inside. He finally stepped after her, the door swinging behind him and enveloping them in the scented air, Callie already stood at the counter and rocking through tiptoes to see the menu scribbled on chalkboards up on the wall. He watched her for a moment and felt a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as her nose crinkled in thought. 

 

Eventually they found themselves sat rooted at a small iron table, tucked against the front window of the café, a tray between them loaded with cappuccinos you could climb into and pecan pie Calliope swore was even better than her grandmother's. Spencer had enough mind to remember Gideon's advice at the register, bodily reaching over Calliope's head to hand over his credit card. She'd laughed and tried to protest, but her eyes had been fond at the gesture. Now, in the almost cramped pocket of the store, shod of coats and bags and sat almost knee to knee as sugar was stirred into steaming cups, things felt strangely less forced. Calliope sipped from her coffee and smiled over the rim of her cup when she set it down, eyes holding his face as the china tinkled under her fingers. 

 

“It’s good to see you, Spencer… You look well. Less tired than I remember.” 

 

Spencer tapped the wooden stirrer on the rim of his own cup, glancing up at her with a lopsided little smile from beneath a stray lock of hair as he replied,

 

“Thanks, I think? You do too, Look well, I mean. Not tired.” Hazel eyes dropped to the hand resting on the handle of her coffee cup and the forearm it belonged to. Now she was out of her coat she was down to a mustard jumper dress, it’s sleeves rolled up to her elbows, leaving the shiney tissue damage running from the bracelets of her wrist to the midpoint of her forearm in open view. It was still a purpleish sort of blush colour in the centre, but the feathered edges almost disappeared into her pale skin. 

 

“You look well,” he said again. Calliope watched as he inspected the old wound, brows drawing together as she murmured,

 

“It still bothers you..?”

 

Their eyes met and Spencer made an uncomfortable attempt at a smile. 

 

“Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude.”

 

“It’s okay,” Calliope replied and she twitched her arm a little more into the afternoon light filtering in through the window, the scar almost glimmering as it caught in the sun. “Tell me the truth.”

 

Spencer swallowed and nodded, suddenly becoming very interested in the foam on his coffee. 

 

“I can’t forget. I’m sorry, I know that’s not how you want to be thought of. But I literally can’t forget. I uh, I sort of…. I have an eidetic memory. I remember everything I see, so…”

 

Calliope was very careful not to allow her eyes to widen. Her fingers curled to rest their tips inside the palm after her hand, skin warming in the sunlight through the window. The letters had long had her suspecting intellectually he was three thousand miles beyond her, but that was a particular revelation. 

 

“You remember  _ everything _ you see..?” she breathed, trying to get total clarity on exactly what the problem was before she dealt with it. Reid nodded, tongue running along the inside of his teeth. Almost a year and he’d never told her. Deliberately. Better not to reveal the full extent of his peculiarities if he could help it. He liked the simple way they talked, he hadn’t wanted to jeopardize that. But he also had no intention of outright lying to her, either. Just avoiding certain truths as long as he could.

 

“Everything. It’s often referred to as a photographic memory, but that’s not right. It’s more like movies. Visual information looping constantly. Things overlap.”

 

“So you look at this-” She twitched her arm.

 

“Mmhm.” He didn’t elucidate any further and Calliope didn’t want him to. This wasn’t how she’d expected the reunion to go. He’d gone back to stirring his coffee, apparently intent on popping every bubble in the foam if it meant he didn’t have to look up again. She watched him a full thirty seconds, then reached out with her free hand across the table and caught his idle one, feeling him flinch in her grasp at the unexpected contact. Unperturbed, she drew his hand forwards herself and lightly touched his fingertips to the offending scar, clear blue eyes holding his startled ones as she held onto him.

 

“It’s just skin, see? Nothing more. It doesn’t hurt. I’m here. Whole and complete. And now you’re here too. It’s time to make new memories, okay..?”

 

He stared back at her, rabbit caught in headlights. She waited. Felt his thumb move a few millimetres in an almost imperceptible caress across the part of the scar that crossed her pulsepoint. Watched him seem to be fighting against something internally.

 

“Okay…”

 

Calliope smiled and squeezed his fingers before letting them go, knowing not to take it personally when his hand practically shot under the table. She lifted her coffee once more, cupping it in both palms, elbows rest into the table top and Spencer took this as his cue to look away, dropping a fourth sugar cube into his own cup as he said,

 

“Alexander the Great was rumoured to be able to remember all of his soldier’s names, which doesn’t sound particularly impressive until you realise he had over thirty thousand men under him.”

 

“Think he took ginkgo biloba?” 

 

Spencer let out a dry little laugh and looked back up at her, the tension broken as he rounded into an explanation of the wealth of data which undermined the practical application of ginkgo extract on cognitive processes, Callie listening with a smile. She occasionally accused him of being cynical with an impish gleam in her eye and a teasing smirk, sipping her coffee and after a while starting in on her pie. By the time he was rounding off pointing out that just because something was natural it didn’t mean it was good for you, case in point being hemlock root, the uncomfortable conversation from before was forgotten, the final line hopefully drawn under him being the agent and her being the victim. 

 

The first round of coffee gave way to a second, the conversation moving to plugging the gaps of what each had been doing in the last few days, Spencer being sparing on the details of the case but honest where he could, Calliope occasionally asking warily curious questions about the science of what the team did on this occasion, something she’d always been cautious of. By the third cup of coffee it was dark outside and they’d resorted to sharing the next accompanying piece of pie with two forks, Spencer agreeing it was very good and Calliope promising she’d send him one of her grandmother’s sometime. Topics had turned through the works of Patrick Suskind, just what was the easiest route to the Empire State building complete with Callie drawing a map and specific public transport options on a napkin, who was the better Captain, Kirk or Picard…They talked until the cafe was trickling empty and the barista made a point of wiping down their table while they were still sat there, Callie biting back a smile before she leaned across the table once the other woman had moved off and whispered in a conspiratory sort of way to Spencer,

 

“I think we’ve outstayed our welcome.”

 

Spencer felt a pang of regret when they found themselves out on the sidewalk a little after six in the evening, the afternoon having passed far faster than he’d realised. Callie shivered as she buttoned up her coat, drawing her shawl tight around her shoulders, one hand tucking her hair behind her ear as she looked up at him. 

 

“I guess I should let you get back to your weekend,” she said with a stiffer smile than she’d worn in hours, the lights in the coffee shop window behind them going out as she spoke, leaving her face cast in the glow of street lamps. The air felt like rain. Reid’s fingers curled inside his pant pockets as he looked down at her. 

 

“I enjoyed seeing you,” he managed and gave her a half smile in return, a wavering voice in the back of his head telling him to ask her not to go yet, to get dinner or something, anything to keep her from leaving. He didn’t though. The voice just wasn’t loud enough to win. 

 

“I enjoyed seeing you, too. I really did.” She peered up at him, then over at the road, watching a couple of yellow cabs sail past. “You should see the Park while you’re here, even if you don’t manage anything else, for the record. It’s beautiful, especially at night. The paths become corridors of light.”

 

“I’ll bear that in mind…”  _ Ask her. Ask her to stay, just a little longer. You might not see her again. _

 

“I always love this place best at night. It’s sort of like being in another world… Anyway, I uh- Are you okay getting back to Main? My apartment is the other way from here. I can walk you up if you’re not sure of the way, I don’t mind. The streets here are basically fine, so long as your wallet isn’t hanging out of your pocket, but if you want a guide I don’t mind-”

 

“Could you show me the Park?”

 

The request surprised himself. Calliope peered up at him, eyebrows lifted beneath her bangs. When she smiled Spencer felt himself relax. It’d been okay to ask her to stay… 

 

“If you want. It’s not much of a walk. I mean, if you wanted to go now..?”

 

“It’s best at night, right?” His eyes flickered towards the sky to punctuate the point and Calliope released a soft laugh. 

 

“I did say that, yes. The Bethesda Terrace will be lit by now. You don’t have anywhere else to be?”

 

“No,” Spencer replied, lowering his eyes from the heavens, and felt himself smile. Callie returned it and nodded, more to herself than him.

 

“Well, let’s go sightsee, then.”


	13. The Weekend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Update time :D Thank you so much for the sudden influx of kudos guys, I'm so happy! As always, feedback makes a happy author, so if you enjoy, please leave a comment :) Also, how HANDY is Google Earth? I live in England but I did a digital walk through of Central Park for this chapter haha!

 

The journey to Central Park was more comfortable than their initial walk down to the coffee shop had been a few hours earlier. The city was still humming with life, commuter traffic rushing around them at an alarming rate and viscosity, but the pair took an easy amble through the streets, more or less oblivious to everyone else. As they walked Callie would point out the odd point of interest, such as the place that did the best breakfast bagel or where you could get the tackiest I Heart NY souvenirs for the family, or the backstreet that cut off a good ten minutes on the journey to St Patrick's, if he wanted to see it. Spencer listened with a content little smile, occasionally supplying his own top up points of information, such as did she know 15,152 different life forms had been found living in the New York subway system, including many that were found nowhere else on Earth. Callie had pulled a face at this, then laughed and sworn she'd always known there'd been a reason she preferred to walk. 

 

The truth of it was there was factually little she could tell him about the city he didn't already know, but it wasn't about that. She wanted to share with him, everything she loved, everything about the place she held dear and made it special to her. She played tour guide with a sort of pleasured glee about her that made Spencer feel the most welcome he had since he'd first joined the BAU. It mattered to her, what he thought of her world. 

 

In spite of Callie's assurances it would only be a brief stint to get to the park it ultimately took over an hour to reach the gates on 5th Avenue thanks to their leisurely pace. As they passed under the shadow of the Metropolitan Museum Spencer felt himself coil internally, as if somehow Gideon might be watching them from some shadowed window, inspecting his actions. Which of course logically was a ridiculous notion from multiple perspectives, but old habits died hard. 

 

It was little more than a break in the wall that marked the portal from the lifeblood street of the city into the green space beyond, a tangible shift in the air as they stepped from sidewalk to footpath, the trees immediately helping to dampen down the raucous that lay just beyond verdant borders. Calliope looked up at Spencer expectantly after the first couple hundred yards, as the industrial world fell away, sounds of traffic muted some by distance. The path they were following was lined with climbing sycamores and green benches in snaking runners, enough to seat a hundred people a piece, tall black streetlamps like something out of a CS Lewis novel illuminating their way. There were a few other pedestrians, one or two evening joggers and dog walkers, but it was quieter by far than the bustling streets they’d left. 

 

“It’s beautiful,” Spencer breathed when he caught her looking at him and Calliope laughed softly, turning her gaze back to the path.

 

“It’s nice. This bit is just nice. It’s beautiful later. The outer rim here is kinda close to the road, but once we move deeper it calms down and there’s all sorts of treasures, if you know where to look.”

 

“You mean like the Alice sculpture? Or there’s Strawberry Fields, or the obelisk, or-”

 

“Is nothing a surprise for you?” Callie giggled slightly as she looked up at him with an arched brow. Spencer swallowed and grazed his teeth across the inside of his cheek, his eyes turning to his feet as he murmured

  
“New York was one of those places I always figured I would get around to when I was younger. And then when I did, tourism never even crossed my mind. But I had always wanted to come here. It’s where everyone wants to run away to at some point, right?” 

 

“Every musician, artist, poet, every teenager with heartbreak, every soul who feels misunderstood,” Callie said softly, watching him intently as she walked, deciding not to call any more attention to the reason for his first trip to the city. “I should know. I did.”

 

“You did?” This got the surprised beginnings of a smile, curiosity lighting hazel eyes.

 

“Mmhm. I was eighteen. I ditched Verona to come catch my big break in the city. I had a trust fund and more dreams than sense. I went to SVA and got my Bachelor’s, sold out of other people’s galleries for a little while, eventually found my own feet. I ran away to New York and I got lucky. Sometimes running away works out, I guess.” She looked up at him with a smile as she added, “Do you want to see her?”

 

“Who?” Spencer blinked, thrown off by the question.

 

“Another runaway.”

 

That’s how they found themselves at the Alice in Wonderland sculpture, Callie laughing as Spencer approached the immortalised bronze scene of Alice Liddell and other famous populants of Wonderland, declaring as he looked at the uplit scene,

 

“She’s huge!”

 

“Isn’t that the point?” Calliope stood with her hands in her pockets, watching with a broad smile as he slowly circled the statues, taking it all in. “The kids here love her. Sometimes they sit under her mushroom to read. I think Lewis Carroll would have been a fan of that…”

 

“My mother used to read Lewis Carroll to me, when I was very small.” Spencer paused when he drew up to the Alice statue’s elbow, reaching up as if he was going to touch her cheek, but stopping just short of actually making contact.

 

“Want a picture for her?” 

 

Spencer looked up in time to see her digging through the messenger bag she was carrying with her, producing a stout, square camera that looked a good twenty years old with a bright smile. 

 

“You brought that with you?” he said with a slight chuckle as she held it up.

 

“Never know what the day’s going to bring. Hold still.” 

 

Before he could protest she’d clicked the shutter and a few seconds later a slip of grey glossy paper was spat out, Callie catching it before it could drop on the ground. As she approached she blew on the photo gently then offered it to him as he stepped back around from the sculpture, saying as he took it with careful fingers,

 

“Let me know what she thinks.” Spencer’s gaze darted from the developing photo to her face, giving her a vague attempt as a smile. His mother was still a total mystery to her. It was a sweet gesture, though. If she had a lucid moment she'd probably like it.

 

“I will,” he said honestly. 

 

Their path took them around a large pond next, it’s waters so still it was a sheet of molten gold as it reflected light from the city that towered beyond the green space. When they reached the Hans Christian Anderson monument Calliope stopped to fondly pat the head of the Ugly Duckling and sat between the writer’s hand and hip, feet dangling above the ground as Spencer read aloud from the bronze book. 

 

On their journey around the enormous lake in the centre of the park they paused on a bridge to lean against the railing and stare out across the water, the lights of a waterside restaurant glowing in a yellowy haze in the distance, music carrying across on the evening breeze. They just stood in silence for a little while, Callie with her chin in her hand, elbow rest on the stone balustrade as she gazed out. At some point Spencer’s attention drifted from the view to her, studying her profile, cheeks pinched pink from the cool evening air and eyes reflecting the lights, a content little smile on her face, oblivious to the fact she was being watched. 

 

The rain came before they reached the Bethesda Terrace. Callie had let out a shriek of laughter and snatched the hood of her parka up, one hand on her head and the other waving to beckon him with her as she broke into a run down the path, the ground changing from concrete to brick. Their way was marked by brightly lit arches, Calliope skidding through them first, Spencer a couple of seconds behind, both of them shaking off fat droplets of water and laughing as the rain poured down in sheets behind them.

 

“Well, I guess that’s us trapped,” the blonde giggled, brushing her hand through her hair to sweep wet strands off her face as she leaned against one of the columns propping the terrace up to peer out at the deluge beyond, the fountain and it’s angel blurred in a haze of purple light refracted by the downpour. When all she was met with was silence she turned to look back over her shoulder, gaze soft as it landed on Spencer, his head tilt back, staring up at the ornately tiled ceiling over their heads in awe. He was stepping slowly, drifting through the space, the only way to describe his expression one of wonder. Calliope smiled quietly to herself and reached into her bag, pulling out the Polaroid to snap a photo while his attention was diverted. 

 

When he looked down she was still leaned against the stone pillar, her hands roped together, one ankle tucked behind the other, her hair coiling into tighter waves from the moisture. Her smile grew as she met his eyes and she said gently,

 

“This part is properly beautiful…” 

 

“It really is…” 

 

Callie pushed herself away from the column, tucking her damp hair behind both ears as she stepped deeper into the underpass, gaze darting over the space. 

 

“It was built to be somewhere to overlook the lake. But they made it beautiful in it’s own right. It’s the same tiles used in church floors over in Europe. Somebody decided they were too lovely to be walked all over and put them in the ceiling instead, so everyone could look up and admire them.”

 

“Calvert Vaux,” Spencer offered on reflex. Calliope smiled up at the ceiling. 

 

“What do you think then? Does seeing it in person stand up to reading about it?” 

 

“It’s better.”

 

“Things usually are.” 

 

As the rain hammered down on the city and drummed on the stone over their heads, echoing through the vaulted space, they moved to sit on one of the stone benches in the brightly coloured alcoves and wait out the worst of the weather. Spencer allowed her to explain the history of the fountain beyond, managing not to interject to fill in gaps, content to just listen to her talk. She let him fiddle with her camera and take a couple of pictures of the terrace to add to his take homes, offering him the one she’d snatched on the sly earlier. As he wafted them to help them dry she picked the Polaroid up from his lap and shuffled closer to him on the bench, catching him by surprise as she leaned into him just a little and held the camera at arm’s length, clicking an image of them together. 

 

When the photo developed, rising in ghostly sheets from the greyed out gloss, he was struck by how happy he looked, even in his half rain bedraggled state. Callie was squeezed in beside him, her chin on his shoulder to fit them both in the frame, smile shining. 

 

“Could I keep this one?” she asked almost shyly when it was dry, sucking her bottom lip as she waited for his permission. Truthfully he was reluctant to turn it down himself but he nodded, the warmth he got at the idea she wanted the photo with him enough to make up for the lack of his own copy. 

 

It was almost nine by the time the rain eased off to a drizzle and they were able to emerge from the terrace, the sudden appearance of a road on the other side of it jarring after the stillness of the park. It took absolutely zero persuasion for him to go to dinner with her, a cab ride taking them down to Chinatown. Spencer's vague attempts to use chopsticks had been met with a fond smile and bitten back laughter, and eventually she’d finally reached over to take his hand, manoeuvring his fingers around the utensils with patient explanation of how to create the pincer like grip. Spencer surprised himself with how easily he allowed her to touch him in order to teach. His attempts were still dire despite her efforts though and in the end she’d asked for a fork with him as a show of comradery. 

 

“It’s bad etiquette to stab your food with a chopstick anyway, so really asking for a fork is just good manners,” he’d reasoned with a wry smile. 

 

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” she’d giggled and in a moment of teasing displayed her prowess in picking up a single grain of rice with the sticks before abandoning them in favour of  the western eating implements. 

 

Spencer was never more sorry than when dinner was over. They stretched out a pot of jasmine tea as long as they could, Callie listening with genuine fascination to him explain the basics of tasseography, but eventually he began to yawn. It seemed a world away that he’d been chasing Marvin Doyle through the city, another lifetime almost. As the clock headed towards midnight though, it was catching him up. 

 

Outside the restaurant they hovered in the cold air, neither one wanting to be the first to say goodbye. Callie shuddered, her hands stuffed deep into her pockets and Spencer felt a twist of guilt for keeping her. 

 

“Thank you for today,” he finally ventured, something in him aching as he took it upon himself to make the first efforts towards bidding farewell so she could get to the warmth of her apartment. 

 

“You’re welcome. I had a lot of fun,” she replied, smile wavering for a moment as she peered up at him. 

 

“Are you going to be okay getting home..?”

 

She laughed softly at this.

 

“I’m pretty sure I am. I have this friend who helps make the city a safer place, so…”

 

It took Spencer a little too long to realise she was talking about him. When he did though he felt warmth rush to the back of his neck as he looked down at her. She still hadn’t waved down a cab. 

 

“Look, I- I don’t want to monopolise your time here, but if you’d like to get together again before you leave on Sunday…”

 

Spencer felt himself nodding before he even opened his mouth. 

 

“I would like to. Of course, I don’t want to impose, but if you have the time, I would like to see you again.”

 

“Might not get another chance, right?” She’d smiled when she said this, but it hadn’t been a joke. It didn’t reach her eyes. Spencer missed that.

 

Once they’d got the firm agreement the weekend wasn’t over she’d finally gotten into a taxi, parting with a promise to see him tomorrow and Spencer had headed back to his hotel, feeling slightly drunk despite being on nothing stronger than tea. 

 

Saturday they met not long after ten. Calliope obligingly played guide down to Brooklyn Bridge, where they sat on a wall and looked over the East River, paper coffee cups in hand. In the afternoon she promised to take him somewhere she just had “a good feeling about,” which turned out to be a building brightly labelled ‘MoMath’. She’s proudly announced it was a museum of mathematics, and for a moment Spencer hadn’t been sure whether to feel embarrassed, suspicious or delighted. Once inside though he’d quickly relaxed. The working square wheel bicycle was a dead give away that the place didn’t take itself too seriously. As they spent the afternoon working their way through the series of brightly coloured puzzles and exhibits Spencer began to draw an increasing crowd of small children and adults alike, managing to get genuine applause when he solved a challenge involving sets of numbered cubes and ropes meant to demonstrate the principle of string theory in under ninety seconds. Calliope had watched in wonder and when they left she said to him,

 

“I’ve got it. You’re a wunderkind, aren’t you?”

 

Spencer had blushed, hating the reflex. When Calliope saw it, she smiled up at him and added,

 

“I’ve pretty much always figured you were some kind of brilliant. So long as I don’t bore you down here…”

 

“You definitely don't,” he’d replied and that had been how his genius was properly outed, start to finish. 

 

Once it was dark they went to Times Square. Calliope had huddled in close to him to keep from being separated, her fingers tucked into the crook of his elbow as a safety net. The crowds grew too much quickly, though and they opted for the Empire State soon after, the wind bitterly cold up on the viewing platform but the view spectacular. Calliope managed to get someone else to take a picture of the pair of them with the city lights dropping away behind them and this one she offered to him. He accepted it without hesitation. 

 

Dinner was at a pizzeria and after Spencer never made it back to his hotel. They wound up at Calliope’s apartment, the space feeling very different this time when he was entering it on invitation. They sat out on the roof with a beer each, Callie with a sketchbook in her lap, one knee propped up so he couldn’t see what she was working on, although he knew. She said she’d want to take his portrait if he ever came to the city. It should have felt invasive but it didn’t. It felt natural, to be sat there with her of an evening, talking about nothing much in particular, Callie’s eyes darting between his profile and her page. When he’d finished his beer she let him see the drawing and he’d found himself smiling at the way she’d rendered him; head inclined as if in thought, a lock of hair slipping free to brush his forehead, eyes intent on something unseen, marks soft and layered in fine, smooth strokes. 

 

“It’s too complimentary.”

 

“No it’s not. You’re beautiful. Botticelli would have had a field day if you’d sat for him.”

 

They sat up on that rooftop all night, Callie fetching blankets when it became too cold and switching beers for coffee. They watched the sunrise over the city, the sky turning from pale grey to gold to clear blue. A little before seven Callie dozed against his shoulder, Spencer letting her contently. Physical contact had been an alien thing for him for a very long time, he’d forgotten being in close proximity with someone could feel good…

 

When Gideon text the alert woke her and they both looked down at the message asking about travel arrangements in weighted silence. Callie was the one to break it, moving to sit up as she spoke and draw her blanket tighter around her shoulders;

 

“Back to reality, I guess…”

 

“Back to DC…” he murmured in agreement, reluctant to text back.

 

“It’s only a train ride. Four hours. I’ve checked. I could come see you, if you wanted me to…” she broached, shivering as she spoke, the offer not entirely confident. He’d already rejected it once. Spencer looked up at her, his gaze torn. The weekend had been good. Too good. Surely trying to recreate it would end up in devastation..?

 

“If you came to DC someone might recognise you from the case…” he attempted lamely, a weak attempt at a cover up for his own fears. Calliope managed to catch her facial expression in time to not let the hurt show through. 

 

“I know. Protocol. I remember. I just liked seeing you. I’d almost forgotten what you looked like… Maybe one day you’ll be able to come back here. You didn’t even see Lady Liberty.” She managed a smile and got to her feet, letting herself back into the apartment building to brew fresh coffee. Spencer felt a headache gathering rapidly behind his eyes as he text Gideon back. 

 

They managed breakfast at a small deli close to her building before he had to meet Gideon at Grand Central. Wanting to make the most of the time they had left, Calliope asked him over the pancakes what he’d meant about the atoms of the faces she drew coming from a star. He’d explained that everything in the universe was made of the same particles and it could be traced right back to the moment of the Big Bang, which meant she herself was made of star stuff. She’d replied that was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. 

 

At a quarter to eleven they stood outside the train station and once again neither wanted to be the first to say goodbye. Calliope had been the one to initiate the hug and this time Spencer held her in return, embracing her as tight as he dared, her head tucked under his chin. 

 

“I’ll write you,” he murmured close to her hair.

 

“I’ll wait,” she replied, words swallowed up in the front of his shirt, the familiar promise some comfort to the both of them. 

 

She waited to watch him disappear into the station, waving to him from the sidewalk, fighting the stinging sensation of tears. Gideon met him at the door and caught sight of the pale figure, avoiding meeting her eye as he guided his young colleague inside, ever vigilant of invading on Reid’s personal space. 

 

“Good weekend?” he asked nonchalantly as they stepped through the revolving doors. 

 

“Better than I knew I could have…” Spencer replied quietly, the train ticket a dead weight in his hand when Gideon handed it to him.

 

“There’ll be other weekends.” 

 

“I’m not sure there will be.”


	14. The Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a small one this time, but I hope you like. Pacing is always such a challenge for me >.< If you enjoy, please comment! <3

For the first few days back in DC something in Reid just felt wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on what exactly, but something was off. The commute to work felt longer. His apartment quieter.

It was the Thursday before he wrote to Calliope again. He still text her each evening to bid her goodnight, but thinking about her too hard just lended to the sensation of displacement he was experiencing. He kept the letter short, conscious that his odd mood might spill over onto paper if he didn’t reel it in. When her reply was waiting for him on his doorstep the following Monday, she’d noticed and her opening line was to ask if he was alright. He wrote back he was fine. He didn’t write that he was missing her, however much he wanted to. Neither did she, so he figured that he was probably just being overbearing and she didn’t need to hear it. Within a couple of weeks the trip to New York was little more than a dream, his only evidence it had been real the photo on the desk in his bedroom, the pair of them huddled in close at the apex of of the Empire State against the wind. Callie was smiling at the camera but as he’d framed it Spencer had noticed he was smiling down at her.

If Calliope was a breeze that occasionally distracted him from reality then Lila Archer was a tornado. She crashed into his world with all the same abandon and force, upturning everything in her wake. She was beautiful and vivacious, and kissing her had definitely not been unpleasant, but it hadn’t been how he thought his first one would be. Then there was the issue of the paparazzi and the pressures of both their lives and the fact that he just didn't know her. She was intoxicating, but surely that in itself was something to be wary of?

Morgan had tried to help him figure it out, though in truth hadn’t been all that much help. Spencer flipped back and forth for days on whether to call her or not. The magazine with the papped shot of them together sat on his kitchen table, mocking his indecision.

Truth was the one person he really wanted to talk it through with he found he couldn’t. He got as far as putting pen to paper, wanting to vent all his confusion to an ear he knew would listen, but something stopped him short of actually telling Calliope all that was bothering him.

On the one year anniversary of her being snatched he called her, knowing that her healing was likely to be under a strenuous test. He could tell by the hoarse undertones of her voice that she was struggling. Pacing around his kitchen as they talked, Spencer gently reassuring her that sometimes crying was okay, his eyes fell on the magazine. He scooped it up and looked at the cover while Calliope did her best to joke about being an ugly crier.

“You're never ugly,” he said without thinking.

“You should see me in the mornings,” she replied with a weak laugh, and Spencer smiled.

“I have.”

The magazine went into the garbage and he spent half the night on the phone with her, despite it being a Tuesday, talking in a way they hadn't since his trip to the city. A little before three in the morning she'd given him orders for bed, voice soft on the other end of the line when they were parting;

“Thank you. You didn't have to call me tonight…”

“I wanted to… You- you're my friend... And I know you will never admit to having a bad day, but I figured maybe today might be one of the less good ones.”

Silence stretched, almost too long, then,

“Promise me you're going to come back here someday…”

“I promise.” The simple oath was probably more fervent than he'd meant it to be. He thought maybe he could hear her smile on the other side of the phone.

“Go to sleep, Spencer...”

The following morning Gideon was waiting for him at the coffee pot in the bullpen and asked without looking up as he swirled cream through his mug,

“She okay?” Spencer stared at him, his expression as deadpan as he could make it. Gideon had read her file. Of course he had. He knew what day it’d been yesterday.

“Yes...” he murmured and moved to get his own cup down, trying to project blasé like he knew how. Gideon smiled an almost imperceptible smile into his coffee.

“Good. Tough cookie.”

May 2006 crept up with a sneaking warmth, DC thawing from it’s biting winter to bathe in sunlight and warm showers, but when the team was issued mandatory leave as a matter of fulfilling FBI health and safety requirements, Spencer knew none of it would be spent in the city. Morgan tried his hardest to persuade him to take a trip to Barbados with him and Elle, to no avail. Instead he booked a flight to Nevada, then looked at others to New York, trying to figure out the logistics. He could take the last couple of days in the city, maybe a little longer than a weekend. He had to see his mother, try and make up for Christmas somehow, if he could, but he could surely split the last few days keeping another promise he’d made.

He wrote to Calliope, rather than called, tentatively broaching the idea he might visit soon with her, if the offer still stood..? She’d replied with warm enthusiasm at the idea and a polaroid of the table they’d sat at in the coffee shop from before, chairs empty and handwritten caption in the bottom of the white frame: _Waiting for you._

The trip never happened. He’d called from Quantico, explained as sparingly as he could that someone was targeting his team and his mother, and she hadn’t had any odd mail other than from him, had she, no cryptic gifts or riddles? Words fell out of him in a stream from his locked stall in the men’s bathroom at the BAU, shoved out by pressure and stress, Calliope resorting to becoming almost stern at the other end of the call in order to reign him in;

“Spencer. Spencer, it’s okay. Slow down. Is your mom alright?”

“Yes. No. Um, she’s fine. Physically. She doesn't want to be here…”

“Okay. But she’s safe, that’s what matters, right? She’s in one of the safest places probably in the whole world, and she has you there with her.”

“I haven’t seen her in five years.”

It just fell out, like word vomit. He couldn’t keep it in. Nobody understood, not really. Nobody knew the full extent of how fractured things were, how fractured Diana Reid was. The team were being kind and patient, and Garcia was trying to be her sweetest self with him since he’d outed his mother’s condition right in front of her because of the case, but nobody knew the full weight of the landslide he was being crushed under since his personal and professional worlds had collided.

“But you’re there now. She’s your mom. I know you love her. You hardly talk about her, but when you do, it’s always with love. She knows you love her, too. Whatever else is going on down there, what matters right now is you’re together. Tell her you love her and everything else will be forgotten…”

“How can you be so sure?” Spencer pinched the bridge of his nose, head and eyes hurting, pulse thumping in his left eardrum.

“I just am. Nothing is so sacred as a mother’s love, remember..? Did she like the picture of you?”

“I have no idea…”

“Maybe you should ask her…”

He sighed, wiping his palm down his face, knowing she was right. He was still trying to avoid his mother, even in the midst of the Fisher King’s chaos.

“Calliope..?”

“Mmhm?”

“I... sorry about cancelling...”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. Let me know how you are, when you can, huh? Your mom too. New York will still be here tomorrow, and the day after that too. You’re where you need to be right now.”

When Garner was dead and the case closed he saw his mother back to Las Vegas. He held her hand and read her Margery Kempe as she chewed her nails down to the quick on the flight, and in the week’s leave he’d managed to scrape he slept on the couch in her room, rebuilding some of the bridges he thought long burned. On the third night there when he couldn’t sleep because exhaustion had finally been abated and his restless mind had won out again he pulled out his phone, screen dimmed as low as it would go. Taking a deep breath, he text three words;

_Bennington Sanitarium. Goodnight._

Almost five minutes later his phone buzzed in his palm and he flicked open the message back;

_I think I understand. Whenever you’re ready. Goodnight x_

This time when he said goodbye to his mother he was able to give her a kiss and it’d made them both feel better. She’d run her thumb over his cheekbone and murmured something about him needing more sleep and complex carbohydrates, and the way she looked at him when she spoke made him think maybe he was forgiven. He told her he loved her and hated himself a little less on the way to the airport. Before he boarded he text Callie to let her know he was headed home and asked if maybe they could talk tomorrow before putting his phone on flight mode.

When he hit DC he was surprised to find no reply. That was unlike her enough to notice. He tried calling but only got her voicemail, feeling a flicker of panic as he left a message;

“Calliope, it’s me. I guess you’re teaching or working or- I just wanted to say hi. I didn’t mean to bother you. Sorry. Bye.”

On the subway back to his apartment he lost cell service, but when he arose still no text and no missed calls. Should he call her mother? He could have Garcia pull her number, but then he would have to explain why and at the very best that’d just make him look totally insane, not to mention it’d drag Callie out into the open and he’d have to explain exactly who he’d been talking to, then come up with a really good reason as for why, and then Hotch would probably suspend him, never mind Morgan would have totally the wrong idea-

This was stupid. He was being irrational. She was allowed a life outside him. Just because she’d always replied within a couple of hours at the most before. Always in the last six months. Just because she always returned his calls, even if he’d forgotten about the time difference between say, Portland and New York that one time on a case and he’d accidentally woken her at two in the morning…

Climbing the stairs of his apartment building he tried calling her again. One ring, two, three. As he climbed his pace began to pick up, until he was jogging the four flights to his floor. He could hear Bob Dylan somewhere above him as he took the steps two at a time, free hand on the rail to steady himself, the panic tightening his chest. The sound of Like A Rolling Stone was getting louder, tinny notes carrying down the steps. His free hand dug about in his pocket for his keys, adrenaline costing him some coordination, and he almost tripped up the top step when he dismounted. When he got Callie’s voicemail this time he didn’t leave a message, but immediately redialled, mind darting to bloody canvases and Reuben Amado’s two hundred pound frame…

Bob Dylan skipped and then restarted. He looked up as he finally tugged his keys from from his khaki’s, the adrenaline that’d been mounting spilling over in a crashing wave when he saw the figure sat cross legged in front of his door. The music was coming from the cellphone clutched in Calliope’s hand, the corner of it pressed to her bottom lip as she looked up at him with a consummately guilty expression from beneath silvery bangs, duffle bag at her knee.

“Calliope..?”

She swiped her thumb across the phone, disconnecting his frantic phonecall, teeth grazing over her lower lip as she peered up at him.

“Please don’t be mad at me. I- I know you don’t want me to be here, that DC is a no-go zone, I can totally go straight back to the airport, I just- You sounded really crappy on the phone last week and I didn’t know how to fix it, and then when you text me about that hospital- Please don’t be mad… I know this is stupid. I just thought you might want company…”

“I’m not mad…” he managed from his spot frozen fifteen feet down the hallway. He wasn’t sure what he was, but he was certain mad wasn’t it. Calliope watched him for a few moment, making sure for herself, then slowly got to her feet, stuffing her phone into her jacket pocket before she roped her fingers together tight, her cotton sundress crinkled from where she’d been sat waiting. Her cheeks flushed a pale rose colour as Spencer stepped towards her, guilt oozing from her as she breathed,

“I can go. Seriously. I don’t even know what I was thinking… But once I was on the plane I’d committed, so, uh- well I figured I’d at least wait to say hi…”

“Don’t go.” There was a pleading in his voice he couldn’t filter out. Calliope broke into the wary beginnings of a smile, one hand uncurling from the other to tuck her hair behind her left ear.

“Are you sure..? You don’t have to be polite.”

“Calliope, please… Stay…”

He was in arm’s reach now and when she heard the crack in his voice she moved to wind her arms around him, drawing him into an embrace, her forehead rest on his shoulder. He dropped his go bag and moved to encircle her small frame, the strain of the last couple of weeks catching up with him and weighting his frame down, extra gravity pulling at limbs and drawing him down into the earth, into her.

“I missed you…”

Neither of them was sure which one of them had said it.


	15. The Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Update time! I'm half asleep, so i hope this one is OK. Please kudos and comment, it keeps me writing!

 

Spencer had never given much thought to the appearance of his apartment before. He'd literally never hosted anyone the entire time he'd lived there. Team socials were either at bars, Morgan's or Garcia's and there wasn't anyone outside the team he knew well enough to consider offering them a coffee or something at his place. Opening up the door with Calliope at his heels was an utterly surreal moment and probably one of the few times he was grateful for his childhood of independence by necessity, because it meant he was well trained enough that the place was spotless. 

 

He held the door open once it was unlocked, gesturing for her to step inside first, feeling as if his ears were stuffed with cotton wool as he said in a practised tone of courtesy, 

 

“Have you been waiting long?” 

 

“About an hour. Honestly, I wasn't sure if I was going to beat you here, but I guess I got lucky with the departure times…”

 

She seemed reluctant to step in for a moment, doubt she'd done the right thing still lingering in her face. When she hovered Spencer moved to take her bag, the gesture a wordless communication she was wanted. She visibly relaxed and relinquished the handle, taking a couple of slow steps into the hall and toeing off her sandals. 

 

“How's your mom?” she asked as she tucked them neatly against the wall beside his own shoe rack, the little beaded slingbacks entirely out of place next to his collection of Converse and loafers. 

 

“She-  she's okay.” It was all he could manage for the time being. He'd had every intention of explaining the truth to her once he'd arrived home but she'd caught him on the fly. He locked the door behind them and hung her bag up with the coats, then looked down at her. She still had her jacket on. She didn't feel welcome. 

 

“Are you cold?” he ventured, trying to give her an out either way. She gave him an awkward smile, breathing,

 

“Sorry…” and shrugged off the khaki canvas number, letting him take it and leave it to rest with her duffle. 

 

“I'm glad you're here, Calliope,” he replied as he turned back to her, wanting to be crystal clear. 

 

“Even though you've always told me not to come..?”

 

“I wanted to respect your privacy. I- could we move out of the corridor? I feel weird doing this here…” He rubbed one hand over the nape of his neck, a definite crick lingering in the muscles, his other dropping his own bag on the ground with much less care than he had treated hers. Callie nodded, teeth worrying at her lower lip once more as she looked to him for directions around the apartment. 

 

“The kitchen's the first door on the left.”

 

He realised to late after he'd sent her on her way the front of his fridge was still wallpapered with Polaroids. She was already at his kitchen table, fingertips of one hand resting on the surface by the time he caught up with her, clear blue eyes peering across the makeshift display, a smile in them if not on her lips. Spencer moved to quickly start pulling some of them down, his back to her as he blurted hurried explanations;

 

“I uh, I don't have very many photographs, with my mother so far away, and you're an artist so it didn't feel right to just leave them in the envelopes-” 

 

“I have the one of us in the Terrace on my fridge, too. I keep it there because it makes me happy to see it.”

 

It was the gentlest attempt to reassure him she could probably make. Spencer paused in his stripping, then set the pile he'd already gathered down with almost reverent fingers on the counter to be replaced later, the crick in his neck tightening with every passing moment. He couldn’t look at her now. This had been far easier on her territory than his own. 

 

“Spencer..? Are you sure this is okay..?”

 

He faltered, trying to find a way to put into words exactly the clash of emotion he was experiencing in answer to her question. When he opened his mouth it came in a flood though, a larger story than she was asking him to tell, a flurry of thought and feeling;

 

“Nothing is private, in my line of work. My team and I, we- we’re trained to learn everything we can about someone, without actually knowing them. It’s not deliberate, but we profile one another too. I know when Morgan has been out all night, or when Hotch and his wife have fought, or if Garcia is having a bad day because she brings lemon cupcakes to work. We have a ban, but we all do it, even if we don’t mean to. There’s a lack of boundaries that means trying to have any sort of privacy is almost impossible. Not to mention we’re expected to report all our movements if we leave the city, on the clock or off. It’s all logged, so if anything were to happen to us we’d be flagged, but also to ensure we’re not engaged in any sort of espionage, being part of a federal organisation. I’m definitely not a flight risk, but I’m watched just as heavily as everyone else… One of my bosses, he- he asks after you. He’s never met you, he wasn't part of your case. But he knows. He’s read your file, there’s not a doubt in my mind about that. He knows I talk to you and he knows exactly when too, because he asks after you…”

 

“That’s… that’s sort of sweet, I suppose...” Calliope breathed as he paused mid-torrent, head tilt as she watched him come undone, waiting for the ultimate point.

 

“It’s meant well, but- The reason I’ve always tried to keep you away from from Washington isn’t for me. I don’t mind if I am reprimanded, I don’t think I even would be at this point, not really… I don’t want you to have the sort of scrutiny on you that’s bound to occur if we’re seen together by the people I work with. If they see you, or know that we’re still in contact, they’ll psychoanalyse you right down to the last detail, because it’s what we do...” 

 

“You didn’t want me to come see you because your friends might be nosy..?” Calliope breathed, the beginnings of a soft smile dancing through her eyes as she peered up at him. He looked over at her finally with a strained one of his own, dark shadows rimming his eyes. The fleeting smile faded as she studied sheer exhaustion etched into his features. Was that just permanent?

 

“I just- I don’t want you to be under a magnifying glass… You deserve some privacy. They already know more about you than any stranger should... ”

 

“I think I get it,” she murmured. Her gaze was soft as she peered up at him. Spencer exhaled slowly.  

 

“Hotch has a family. Gideon has- has this cabin, up in the woods somewhere. Morgan flips houses, he told me once. Garcia goes somewhere every Tuesday and Thursday night, but none of us know where. I just- I just thought- I thought maybe if I kept you away from DC I could keep you seperate...”

 

“Nobody knows I’m here but you. I am separate. What are the odds they’d even know, realistically?” She moved around the table to bring herself face to face with him, fingertips lightly brushing the back of his wrist as he met her eye.

 

“Realistically? Around one hundred thousand four hundred and eighty three to one. Maybe a little less but I don't have the data for a truly accurate figure,” he mumbled, skin prickling under her touch. She smiled up at him at this.

 

“I’m not a gambling woman but I think I’d take that.” Fingers glanced from his wrist to the back of his hand, half squeezing his thumb for a moment. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do. I understand that- that maybe cross over isn’t what you want. For me or for you. And if you want I can be on a red eye in a few hours. Like I was never here…”

 

“I don’t want that,” Spencer mumbled, letting out a low exhale, eyes dropped to her small fingers on his. 

 

“Okay,” she replied with a gentle smile and stepped back from him, hand lifting from his to smooth both her palms over the bottle green cotton of her dress, smoothing out the worst of the creases so she didn't keep touching him uninvited. Spencer frowned to himself, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck to try and ease it. 

 

“I don’t want anything to happen that might take you back to what you went through. If that’s the only way people see you, it isn’t fair. You’re more than that.” 

 

“May I offer an alternative opinion?” Calliope spoke quietly, leaning back into his kitchen counter, hands tucked behind her hips as she looked up at him, the question tentative. He glanced up at her with an arched brow and gave her a silent nod.

 

“Maybe you are overthinking this. Maybe you’ve spent so long worrying over me you don’t know how to stop. Maybe you just… just need something your job can’t touch. A space to call your own doesn’t always have to be physical. I don’t work with you. We don’t talk about what happened to me anymore, because it stopped mattering. You don’t tell me about the cases you’re on. You barely tell me where you are half the time. I just get to know you’re alive…  I  _ am _ separate from this part of your life. Maybe you just want to preserve that and that’s okay…” 

 

Silence followed this and hung between them, thick and deep and only interrupted by the vague rumbles of traffic down in the city below. 

 

“Spencer…” 

 

He wouldn’t look at her again. He was frowning, face etched with something that might be a confused sort of hurt, staring at a spot in the kitchen floor. Callie pushed herself away from the counter when she saw this and caught both his hands in her smaller ones, gripping his fingers tight as she dared, leaning in close to look at him, blue eyes full of sympathy when she met his startled ones. 

 

“I am here for you. Just you. Nothing external is going to touch that. Nobody but you and I know I am here. Right now, in this moment, this is separate from whatever else is outside your front door. I promise.”

 

“It won’t stay away forever…” he murmured and she felt his fingers flex a fraction in her hold. 

 

“It’s not here now. I know things have been bad, but right now, it’s just white noise.”

 

His gaze dropped hers and went to their hands, her slender fingers curled around his as if she were afraid he might dissolve should she let go.

 

“Where is your hotel..?” 

 

“I don’t have one yet.”

 

“Would- would you stay here? I’d feel better if you were here…

 

* * *

 

 

The front door of the apartment was bolted and chained as if that might somehow keep reality out. Spencer had tried to persuade her to take his bed while she was staying there, but she’d flat refused, pointing out she was a better fit for his couch than his six foot one frame was. He’d given her a slightly apprehensive tour around his apartment, aware the space didn’t have the sort of character her loft did back in New York. She’d stopped at his bookshelves, all three of them full and more tomes arranged on the windowsill of his living room where they’d spilled over once he’d run out of room. Her fingers had danced along spines, tracing titles and authors, whispering as she took it all in,

 

“Beautiful…”

 

He had to go into work the following morning, but he didn’t know if she’d be true to her word and leave on the earliest flight she could catch, so he sat up on the sofa with her, eating Indian food out of the aluminum dishes it was delivered in, fork pushing around pieces of marinated chicken as he finally unfurled the truth of what his mysterious text about Bennington had been. She’d listened quietly as he explained just how ill his mother was, sat cross legged on the opposite end of the couch, hands folded in her lap once she was done with her food. 

 

“You did the right thing for her,” she almost whispered in the wake of his confession about her committal. “My father, he uh.. It’s not the same, I know, but he had pancreatic cancer. He went into a hospice eight months after his diagnosis… Sometimes all the love in the world isn’t enough to help someone… Sometimes you have to let professionals take over…”

 

Spencer looked up from his cold biriyani, brows knit in a mournful sort of frown. 

 

“I’m sorry about your father…”

 

“It’s okay. It was a long time ago. I just mean- I know what it’s like, in a way, to feel the parent you knew slip through your fingers. You did right by your mom. She’s with the only people that will care about her as much as you do and who can medically help her in a way she knows you can’t.”

 

“She doesn’t always understand…”

 

“Schizophrenia causes confusion though, doesn’t it?”

 

“That would be putting it lightly.” He abandoned the unfinished takeout to the coffee table, twisting at the hip to sit with one leg curled beneath himself, elbow on the back of the couch and temple rest against the heel of his hand as he gazed at her across the space between them. “Confusion, delusions, hallucinations, paranoia… She thought the doctors were out to get her, trying to take away her home. She was right. I let them…”

 

“You probably saved her life. If she was so sick she wouldn’t eat or medicate… I’m sure when she’s lucid she knows you did what you did because you love her.” 

 

“I’ve written to her every day for years now, trying to alleviate some of the guilt for what I did…” he signed, rubbing his eyes. 

 

“Does she write back?” Callie’s arm mirrored his to lean into the back of the couch, fingers wound into her hair as she rest her head in her palm. 

 

“Yes. A couple of times a month.”

 

“Then you’re probably fine…”

 

They talked long into the night, about family, both the ones they were born into and the ones they’d made. Callie’s father had died when she was too small to remember much of him, which was part of the reason she was so close to her mother, but he’d taught her a love of painting as soon as she was old enough to make marks with her fingers. Spencer didn’t talk about his father, having no interest in giving him any air time with her. He did talk about his mother a little more though, able to share fonder memories of when he’d been small, of reading aloud on rainy afternoons and of trips to the theatre when he’d been very small indeed, his first introductions to Shakespeare and Marlowe.

 

It’d been a reluctant journey to bed around two, and only then it’d been at Callie’s behest. He would have pulled an all nighter and made it through the working day on caffeine, but she promised not to leave while he was asleep and that’d been what had won him over. When he’d emerged from his bedroom at 6.30 she was still there, curled up in sleep on the couch, his copy of The Complete Poems of Walt Whitman in her hand, thumb marking her page. He was careful not to wake her as he slid the book from her grasp, glancing at the page she’d stopped on.

 

_ ‘We were together. I forget the rest.’ _

 

She was still in the city too when he’d left the office dead on six, the day thankfully quiet and mostly made of consultations, Hotch easing him back in after his leave, and while they were still a man down with Elle recovering from her shooting. He’d called her from the bus and asked her to meet him on F and 8th North West in the city centre, that he’d be waiting for her there, before he made a second hurried phonecall to Gideon, asking if just this once he could do him an enormous favour with his curator friend at the Smithsonian. 

 

Meeting her on the steps of the American Art Museum, he forgot to ask what she’d done with her day, the exhilaration of what he was about to show her making him forget some social niceties. Samuel, Gideon’s contact, was there waiting for them. Gideon hadn’t questioned why he’d needed the favour.

 

Reid had fallen back a couple of paces when Samuel and Callie began to talk, the curator’s art history knowledge sparking a bright enthusiasm in her, her fair face lit up as he explained some of the treasures they had in the vaults. He led them through staff corridors rather than the gallery wings, though, down to a private room.

 

“Spencer, what are we doing?” she’d whispered when they’d paused while Samuel unlocked the door. He’d just smiled down at her and replied quietly,

 

“You’ll see.”

 

“Here we are,” Samuel declared once the door was open, ushering them all in and locking up behind them again. The room was not much more than an office, a polished wooden table with a leather folio on it in the centre. The curator turned the lights down and pulled cotton gloves from the breast pocket of his suit blazer, untying the leather straps of the portfolio with one hand and beckoning Calliope over with the other, his voice low;

 

“Doctor Reid thought you might find this interesting.”

 

She glanced back over her shoulder, Spencer just smiling and nodding to encourage her forwards. As she approached the table Samuel opened the leather protector up, revealing a small graphite drawing inside, the parchment yellowed with age, on it a portrait of a soft featured woman with a heart shaped face, small mouth and narrow nose, her hair covered with a gossamer veil.

 

“Oh my God…”

 

There were tears in her eyes before the curator even explained what she was looking at. She already knew.

 

“The only original Botticelli in the collection. It was one of his studies for his Madonna. A very early portrait, completed some three years before the final painting. It was donated in the will of a private collector in the early twentieth century. Eventually she’ll have to go back to Italy, but for now we keep her safe.”

 

“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful..?”

She’d sat and gazed at the drawing from every possible angle for almost an hour, Spencer content to take a seat in the corner of the room and watch her in turn, a slow burning pleasure in the pit of his stomach over how very happy she looked. She was only to be pulled away when Samuel had gently informed them the museum was closing and he had a legal obligation to secure the artwork. 

 

Coming down the steps outside she’d reached out to grasp hi’s coat sleeve and when he’d turned around to look at her she stretched through her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.

 

She didn’t stay a second night. A phonecall from JJ put paid to that, a forewarning he’d be flying out to Wisconsin in the morning. So much for easing back in. 

 

They’d stopped off at his apartment to grab her bag and been at the airport before nine. Spencer had tailed after her as she bought her ticket, her flight not due until midnight, and they managed coffee before she had to go through security.

 

“I’m sorry for just turning up,” she breathed as she stopped short of actually going through the gates. 

 

“I’m not. I’m really not.I- I would have liked longer. I’m sorry it didn’t work out that way…”  

 

“Maybe some other time.” 

 

She’d waved to him from the other side of the barrier. Spencer sort of wished he’d kissed her on the cheek in return. He didn’t know it might be the last time he saw her. He didn’t know in the coming months he’d not get another chance. He didn’t know  that he’d be in the dark somewhere someday, bleeding, half dead, mostly out of his mind from fear and opiates, clinging onto the thought of her and what the warmth of that butterfly contact had felt like, memories his only refuge. If he'd had any idea at the time, he might have kissed her too. 

 

But he didn't. 


	16. The Card

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Update time! As always, thank you so very much to all that have read, kudos'd and commented. It really means a lot to me, I appreciate it so much.

Sometimes Callie honestly forgot how she and Spencer had first started talking. The more time passed between who she was now and how she had initially met him, the more it felt like some half formed bad dream, a wisp of grey tangled around the feet of their friendship that was gradually subsiding. On her twenty fourth birthday she'd stood and stripped naked in a full length mirror, casting her eyes over her scars, paying them more attention than she had in a long time. Some of them were now so pale they didn't leap out against her porcelain skin. Only the ones inside her arms and down her shoulder blades had any colour of their own left, and every day they melted further away, the feeling returning bit by bit to the nerves in her damaged skin. She'd made it through another year, the friendship born out of the dark place where she'd got those notches in her flesh helping to erase them more than any therapist could. She finished her sessions the afternoon of her birthday, proudly declaring she was all one piece again, she was sure.

 

He was supposed to have come to New York that weekend, Calliope going so far as to swear off the girls from the gallery and her mother from any surprise parties. They'd written and promised one another dinner and a trip around the Gugenheim, but it never came to fruition. Two days before he was due to fly out a serial rapist tipped up on the team's radar and his weekend was lost to Texas. He'd still called her on the day, murmuring down the phone in a low voice that suggested a couple of minutes solitude was almost impossible in whatever motel the team were camped up in, apologising profusely for missing her yet again and explaining being born in June meant she was far less likely to suffer from seasonal affective disorder than most people. They only snatched ten minutes before she heard an authoritative voice summoning him from somewhere in the background. A couple of days later a courier had turned up at her gallery with a package. When she opened it she found a print book of Titian's paintings, along with a birthday card, a photo of a nebula on the front and written in Spencer's hand;

 

_I saw this and thought of you. I'm sorry not to be there to give it to you in person._

 

Then underneath that, in much smaller print at the very bottom of the card,

 

_“It’s strange, that words are so inadequate…”_

 

She knew the quote from somewhere, but didn’t Google it, deciding she liked it best without further context. She understood the feeling behind it, she was sure, more with each failed attempt to get together just for a day or two. How could someone mean so much when you’d barely seen them in person? Could a penpal be your dearest friend? Probably not. Words they had in abundance, on paper and on electronic signals pinged from cell towers. But he was right. There was an inadequacy…

 

Early in July she met a boy. He was a couple years older than her, a musician, and eyes had met across the bar he’d been playing in, Callie’s frame swaying to the folksy rock from his band. He was cute, in his own way. Dark, ruffled hair, pierced lip, heavy set eyebrows and lots of plaid shirts. He played bass. There were a handful of dates. On the fourth he’d kissed her. She called it off the next day, something wrong despite his best efforts. Maybe she just didn’t like to be touched anymore.

 

She vacationed alone in Paris that summer, able to tick that off her bucket list. She traipsed all eleven square miles of the Louvre, writing sheets and sheets of letters about the DaVincis and Carravagios, cut off from speaking to Spencer by phone. She sent photos from the Jardin des Tuileries, Notre Dame, Montematre, her shoulders burned and freckles on her nose from the sun, and always captioned “ _Because of Spencer_ .” On the back of some she also added “ _Wish you were here_.”

 

When she came back to the States it was to find a pile of replies waiting for her, scattered inside her front door beneath the mail slot. She'd gathered them all up and taken them to her bed to read them in her jetlagged state.

 

_Dear Calliope,_

 

_I understand now why you sometimes felt as if I'd dropped off the face of Earth. I hadn't realised quite how often we speak until suddenly I can't…_

 

_Dear Calliope,_

 

_I'd only slow you down if I was there, but I appreciate the sentiment. You don't know how pleased I am that you made it to your Old Masters. What is Mona Lisa's smile like in person?_

 

_Dear Calliope,_

 

_I'm starting to wonder if I should donate towards the conservation of the rainforest. This is my fourth letter this week. I can only apologise. I was going to text you, but realised that you wouldn't receive it. It's not even important, I just had a thought; your photograph in the Jardin looks as if you belong in a Victor Hugo novel. That’s a compliment, by the way...._

  


_Dear Calliope,_

 

_Sometimes part of me wonders if I imagined you coming to Washington…_

 

She’d curled up in bed with the letters hugged against her chest once she’d read them all, and text him to let him know she was home before she’d fallen asleep. He’d text her back a little before one in the morning:

 

_In Florida. Could be a few days…_

 

She could almost hear the disappointment in those few typed words in her slumber fuzzed state as she read the message, the hiatus of contact seemingly bound to go on a little longer yet. She text back.

 

_I’ll wait. Sleep, if you can x_

 

When they finally spoke on the phone four days later he hardly said a word of his own, gagged perhaps in the wake of his prolific letter writing during her absence. She told him about Paris at night and Versailles in the sunshine and the lilies in Monet’s gardens. She told him everything in between. When she pointed out he was being very quiet, he’d replied in a mumble that three weeks had felt a strangely long time in her voice’s absence. After that she read to him down the phone from a book of translated Verlaine poetry she’d paid an excessive amount of Euro for, her still jetlagged body keeping her going as the sun rose through the broad window of her apartment, reading even when the shift of Spencer’s breathing belied the fact he’d definitely fallen asleep.

 

Autumn came. Her mother turned fifty and playfully teased her about the woeful lack of grandchildren in her life. She brought her a puppy, half a birthday gift, half compensation for something she was starting to suspect she might never give her. There’d been other boys since the musician, who’d asked for her number, but she hadn’t given it out. She was realising, bit by bit, that part of her life had ended before it had ever really began. Whole she may be, but whole unto herself. It was one thing to let her life drawing students study her scars. It was another to let someone touch them. For all her claims they were just skin, how could she possibly explain them to a partner..?

 

This realisation was the first thing she had ever hidden from Spencer. It was too intimate even for him.

 

Late September she set up Skype on her laptop and after the initial amusement at the display of technophobia from him, she walked Spencer through doing the same. The first video call had been juddery and intermittent with lag, but had finally settled, letting her smile at him. He seemed stiffer than on the phone, but warmed to the new form of communication fairly quickly. One night, one of the worst she’d suspected he’d had in the time that she’d known him, he’d been close to tears on the video screen and she’d taken her laptop to bed with her, setting it down on the pillows and laying on her side, head rest on her forearm to prop herself up. He’d been silent a long time before he’d done the same, and it helped swallow up the miles between them until it was almost as if he were there beside her when he did something he never did, and asked if he could talk about the case he’d come back from. She’d nodded, and he’d explained sombrely the serial killer he’d helped apprehend had been a twelve year old boy. She asked if he wanted her to come to Washington. He’d said no. This time she didn’t defy him. When his next letter arrived though, she called him off the back of it and asked  if he’d think about trying to come to New York again soon;

 

_Dear Calliope,_

 

_If you come here, I’m not sure how I will keep the darkness I find myself wading deeper into from sticking to you, too. Up there I know you’re untouchable. I don’t want you coming too close to something that can cause one child to kill another. I’ve seen it unravel a member of my team already, and I think another might be losing to it. I’m starting to think it’s infectious._

 

He booked flights for Thanksgiving weekend. But he spent Thanksgiving in Guantanamo. He’d been able to tell her that he wasn’t coming, but not why until after, and for three days he’d gone utterly radio silent, driving her almost frantic with worry. It was the first time he’d broken their arrangement of the night time messages.  She couldn’t speak to him on the phone once he’d resurfaced, because she didn’t want him to hear how frightened she’d been, but text instead, letting him know she was glad he was okay and that there’d be other Thanksgivings.

 

He’d sent her a business card after that, wrapped up in a letter of apologies. It had the BAU insignia on it and the contact details of a Jason Gideon, the name familiar. It came with instructions that if she was still speaking to him and was ever properly worried she could call that number and always get an honest answer as to where he’d gotten to.

 

Nathan Harris was another of those nights that they lay as if side by side in the same bed, joined by laptop screens and slightly latent Wifi signal. He was so torn, as if somehow he genuinely believed he could have done more to help the boy, avoiding looking her in the eye somehow even via webcam.

 

“He’s alive… He’s alive and he’s going to get help…” she’d whispered, and touched her fingertips to the computer as if she could reach through and take his hand. He’d looked back at her with a thin lipped mask of a smile.

 

“He didn’t want to live. What if I’ve done more harm than good?”

 

“You’re the best person I know. I’m not sure you can do harm. I don’t think you have it in you.”

 

“The- the thing I can’t tell anyone though- apart from Nathan and apart from what he almost did or still might do, because of me- the thing I can't shake because it’s so incredibly self absorbent a thought- He cut his wrists. He cut his wrists and I held them together and for a split second I was right back in Queens, with you, out of nowhere, down in that lockup with all that chaos around us... It just flashed across my eyes and it was so real, and then it was gone again, and I knew it was the wrong thing to be thinking of…”

 

“You remember everything you see…” she’d whispered, because what else could she say to that?

 

The call kept running after they’d fallen asleep that night, the sound of one another’s breathing in one another’s homes. When she woke in the morning she found he’d left his laptop on his kitchen table, a post-it note stuck to the chair it was facing;

 

_Good morning._

_I hope you have a_

_good day._

_Smile._

_Spencer_

 

Of all the thousands of words he’d written her, she thought she might like those the best.

 

Christmas this year she sent him the sketch book he’d given her the one previous, every page filled. There were portraits of strangers, from coffee shops, Central Park, bus stops. There were friends. Melissa. KJ, the girl who ran the gallery on her off days. Her mother. Stuart, the man who’d paint her lifestudies in blue oils and who’d been at Stonewall, his wrinkled features some of the most beautiful she’d ever seen. There was the bench they’d sat on in Bethesda. The view from her apartment roof, in sun and rain. The view from her mother’s kitchen window in Verona. The puppy asleep on the living room carpet, rolled onto his back and pawing the air in his dreams. She also sent a copy of Dostoyevsky’s White Nights for him, _‘More Fool Nastenka!’_ written in the cover, and Spenser’s Faerie Queene for his mother, with a note that she hoped it’d be to her tastes.

 

In return a courier brought her a wooden box, brass locks to clip it closed, a weight about it that made the temptation to peek hard to resist the written instructions that it was for December 25th and not before... She’d opened it up still in bed on Christmas morning, hair gathered into a topknot and tanktop slipping off one shoulder when she’d snapped the Polaroid of her reaction to the watercolours mounted in their porcelain palettes within the carry case, and after Christmas dinner her mother had taken a second of her stood in her garden in the snow, easel packed into the hard ground, working as fast as she could to capture the winter sun before her brush froze. Both photos and the painting went to Washington, an addendum to her first Christmas package. He had written her back that his mother had been pleased with the book but also demanded an explanation of who ‘Spencer’s friend Calliope’ was and on their next phone call they’d both laughed at her instructions that he should marry her.

 

She gradually began to give up on having him back in the city. After Thanksgiving fell through she didn’t ask again, but told him occasionally he could show up at her door next Thursday and he’d be welcome. He didn’t ask her to come to Washington but she knew why now and that was okay. That inadequacy refused to go away, though, especially on the nights he’d seem distant and unusually quiet even for him, his gaze somewhere far away on the webcam. Whatever happened in Golconda, when he came home that was one of those nights and she absolutely resented the fact she couldn’t just walk down to his door and knock on it.

 

Still, he’d always come back to himself in the end. He came to prefer Skype over the cellphone. She did too. There was a game in it that neither openly acknowledged, one of playing at being in the same city, even the same room. Friday nights were their regular slot, KJ never able to understand why she just wasn’t up for going to the bar when the gallery doors were closed.

 

“What’s his name?” her friend laughed one evening in January, Calliope flashing her a grin as she’d zipped her coat while stepping back from her down the sidewalk and refusing to answer.

 

Football season sent the city into a frenzy. The Giants were out of the playoffs by mid January, but that did little to temper the spirit on the runup to the Superbowl. Even Callie found herself swept up in some of the fever, and on February 4th she was in The Junction bar with KJ, her girlfriend and a bunch of other friends by proxy, the room around her roaring and packed shoulder to shoulder. She drank more beer than she should have really, flushed and giddy as she read a text from Spencer about watching his friend Morgan gradually grinding his teeth into dust over the Chicago Bears’ performance.

 

_You’re watching the game?? x_

 

_There’s a surprisingly interesting amount of algorithmic patterns at work in the plays, if you know what you’re looking for.    ...     Yes, I’m watching the game. Team outing. I’m more of a basketball person but the nachos are good! Morgan’s outstanding array of perturbed faces is also very entertaining._

 

_Ooo, don’t go poking the Bear with a stick now, troublemaker!_

 

_Witty! Can I have that one?_

 

_All yours, haha x_

 

KJ and her girlfriend walked her back to her apartment that night, stopping in for coffee before they left her. She curled up with a cup of decaf amongst her cushions by the panoramic window when they were gone, flipping open her phone to text Spencer goodnight and finding a message already waiting for her;

 

_Flying to Atlanta. Sunday seemingly over. Goodnight, Calliope. Dream of lovely things and wake to find them real._

 

She’d smiled at that, some warmth in her face, maybe from the words, maybe from the beer.

 

_Goodnight, Spencer. Fly safe._

 

Then as an afterthought;

 

_Miss you. Night x_

 

She had enough of a hangover the next morning she didn’t bother with going into the gallery, taking the executive decision to leave it closed for the day. She lounged in her pajamas, watched My Fair Lady and idly sketched the beginnings of a thought for a painting in a notepad, a portrait coming from a trail of flowers, Ophelia in the water maybe. She ordered Chinese for dinner, too comfortable to do anything adult like cook, text Spencer wishing him goodnight a little before midnight and went to bed soon after, ready to go back to work the following morning.

 

The next day she rose at a more reasonable hour, showering by seven and out by a quarter past, grabbing up her phone while she multi-tasked, shoving bread into the toaster and brushing her hair. She unlocked it to send the good morning greeting she always did, feeling a patter of something in her stomach when she realised there was no message from the night before. He must still be in the field. Yeah. That was reasonable to assume. Maybe whatever he was working on meant he’d worked straight through the night.

 

_Morning, sunshine! x_

 

She tried not to think about it further as she filled her coffee cup and gathered up her folio of sketches, out the door and at the gallery for eight. She had a walk in that morning who enquired about commissions and wound into a consultation, two new students register for the next course of life drawing starting in March, enough to keep her busy until lunch time. As she picked at her sushi she checked her phone again. Still nothing.

 

_Hope you’re sleeping. Text me back, when you can? Guessing Atlanta’s service is kinda spotty. X_

 

Come lockup at six there was still no reply. She didn’t go home but parked into a coffee shop instead, nursing a cappuccino as she debated the merits of calling him. It was probably nothing. Last time had been nothing, really.

 

Knowing even as she did it that it was a bad idea, she tapped into the store’s free Wifi and browsed news headlines for Atlanta, looking for what it might be that’d called him away. The murder of a prominent Atlanta couple, self made millionaires killed in their own home. The details were sparing but it was made clear it’d been brutal. Jesus…

 

There was still nothing when the coffee shop closed at eight.

 

She was home by a half past. Still nothing. She called him.

 

_“You’ve reached the voicemail of Doctor Spencer Reid, please leave a detailed message-”_

 

It hadn’t even rang. It’d gone straight to the message. It hadn’t even rang once. She tried again ten minutes later. No rings. Just voicemail. She left a message this times;

 

“It’s me. I have a weird feeling. I know you’re working but- Call me?”

 

At nine he hadn’t replied. Or at ten. She rang again. Voicemail.

 

Again.

 

Ten thirty.

 

Again.

 

“Still me. I know I’m probably driving you crazy, but please-.”

 

Midnight. She sat vibrating with adrenaline in her apartment, the room throbbing with her anxiety. The business card was in her hand, pinched between fingers so hard they’d blanched.

 

This time when she dialled out she heard rings. One. Two. Three. Four;

 

“Gideon. Who is this?”

 

The sharpness of the voice at the other end of the phone was enough to stop her breathing for a moment in her wrought state. Something hitched in her throat, an involuntary ghost of a whimper.

 

“Hello? Who is this?”

 

She wasn’t quite crying, but she wasn’t far off. Lungs forced her to breathe of their own volition, fingers curled around the card as she murmured,

 

“Agent Gideon? I- I’m very sorry to disturb you, I- I just- Someone told me I could call you, if I was worried…”

 

“Who is this..?”

 

The voice was much gentler this time, the kind of gentility people used when talking to small children. This was enough to have the tears start to well up in the corners of her eyes, perilously close to falling.

 

“I know I’m being stupid. I know I am, I- I can’t- He’s not answering his phone. And he didn’t text. He always texts, if nothing else. Always…”

 

Silence.

 

A tear escaped and ran down her face to land on her collarbone.

 

“Is this Callie Masterson..?”

 

“Is Spencer with you..?”

 

More silence.

 

A long, drawn out exhale down the other end of the line. Something resigned and wounded.

 

“Callie. I need you to listen to me very carefully. I want you to fly down to Atlanta. Text this number your flight number and when you’ve boarded. I am going to send someone to pick you up. You cannot tell anyone where you are going, you understand? This is a live Federal investigation-”

 

“Oh my God-”

 

“Callie. Callie, listen to my voice. He’s alive. I know that for a fact. And I _promise_ you I am going to fix this. I need you to come here. Follow my instructions. Go to the airport. Can you go now?”

 

“Yes sir…”


	17. The Longest Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay. I couldn't wait to do this one. I needed to get it out. I'm tired and it's probably badly proof read. If it's garbage let me know, because I will pull it down and do it again, this one really needs to be right >.<

Calliope was in the air by two am, obediently texting the flight number to the Agent Gideon that Spencer seemed to trust enough that he knew her name. It was still dark when she landed, shivering from cold and sleep deprivation and a primal sort of fear. When she tried to come through security she’d been stopped and escorted to a tiny room without windows by the TSA. She was left there to wait maybe ten minutes, and when the door opened again there was a man in a Georgia State Police uniform, his hat in his hand and pressed to his chest. 

 

“Miss Masterson?”

 

She nodded in silence, swallowing thickly. 

 

“Ma’am. Detective Farraday. I’ve been asked to escort you to the county sheriff's office. Agent Gideon knows you’ve landed, he’s gonna call shortly.”

 

She followed him numbly to his car, still shivering in the front seat of the SUV even when he blasted the heat for her. Midway through their journey she had to have him pull over and she launched herself out into the grey light of the dawning morning to throw up in the long grass running along the road. 

 

When they reached the sheriff’s office she was settled in a quiet room, with a grey woollen couch, a few magazines scattered about, toys in one corner of the floor. The sort of place families were sat to await bad news. She thought she might be sick again, but her stomach didn’t have anything left. Had this been what her mother had felt, the morning she’d realised she was gone?

 

Farraday brought her a cup of burnt coffee and looked at her in a sympathetic sort of way before he left again, entirely without explanation of what the Hell was happening.

 

When her phone rang she snapped it open without looking at the caller ID.

 

“Spencer?”

 

The same weighted sigh she’d heard before her journey.

 

“I’m afraid not, Miss Masterson.”

 

“Agent Gideon…” She swallowed around the solid lump clogging her throat. “I thought- I thought I’d be meeting you… Where is he?”

 

“Miss Masterson, I am going to do you the courtesy of telling you the truth, but before I do I want you to understand two things; first of all, Reid is brilliant and more capable than people give him credit for. Second, I wouldn’t have called you out here if I wasn’t certain that he is going to come back in alive, and when that happens I think he might benefit from you being there. As a friend.”

 

“I understand…” she whispered, eyes burning as she fought to stay calm, knowing hysteria served no purpose in this moment. “Where is he…?”

 

“He has been abducted, by the same individual we were called out here to investigate.”

 

Time stopped. The earth itself stood still and she thought she might have gone deaf, nothing going in. Agent Gideon was still talking, but her mind was oblivious, paper coffee cup slipping from her grasp to spill it’s bitter contents across the carpet. 

 

“Callie? Callie, are you there?”

 

“How do you know he’s alive..?”

 

That voice wasn’t her own. It couldn’t be. She’d forgotten how to speak, her mind vaulting back to the news reports on the murdered couple on her phone. Bled out. Brutal. 

 

“We’re being shown proof.” 

 

“Proof?”

 

There was something that might have been a stifled groan. He was holding out on her.

 

“You said you would tell me the truth. Please. Agent Gideon. How do you  _ know _ ?”

 

“There’s a video feed.”

 

Camera light, blinking in the dark. Little red flashes. Always watching. 

 

He was the one. The one who had read her file. That’s why he hadn’t wanted to say. 

 

“Where- where are you? Are you here, at the office? I- I don’t understand, I don’t-” 

 

Words wouldn’t work. Her tongue and brain were impotent with terror. 

 

“We’re in the suspect’s house. I need you to stay at the sheriff's station until I call again.”

 

“No. I want to help. You told me to come, I came, I- I need to be there-”

 

“I’m sorry, Miss Masterson, I can’t have you here. I... I don’t believe that Spencer would want you to see any of this. I give you my word, the very second I have him, I will call you. I need you to wait for me. Try and get some rest, if you can….” 

 

She didn’t realise at first, the call had ended. The phone slipped from her fingers and she vomited again in the waste paper basket in the corner of the room.

 

When she recovered her cell from the floor she opened the door, peering out at the desks beyond. A woman in her late thirties maybe, in sheriff’s uniform and with her auburn hair pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck looked up at her from her admin, eyes widening before she came to try and guide her back in, but Calliope shook her off, her jaw set and face grim. 

 

“I need a phone charger.”

 

* * *

 

 

She didn’t sleep. The red haired deputy brought her a charger and later in the morning some oatmeal and another coffee without mentioning the stain on the floor. They both sat untouched. 

 

She text Spencer, because she didn’t know what else to do. 

 

_ They’re coming. I promise. They’re coming to find you. They’re coming and when they bring you back, I will be here.  _

 

She knew fear. She knew fear in a way that nobody who loved her would ever actually be able to comprehend. The kind of fear that made death seem a better alternative to living. 

 

This was worse. 

 

This was perverse, in the very keenest sense of the word, because this was supposed to be her life, not his.

 

She called him, as if somehow he might hear her, wherever he was, knowing what his voice had meant to her in the dark, speaking to his answerphone;

 

“Hey. It’s me again. I miss you… I- I didn’t know it was possible to miss someone this much. I need you to come home, okay? I.. You not being here would be a black hole to me. You know what I mean when I say that, right? It’s that void that sucks in everything around it. Matter, gravity, even light. That’s what my life would be without you. A black hole…”

 

The deputy brought a sandwich in the afternoon and took away the oatmeal. It lay untouched. She fought sleep as long as she could, but she’d been awake over thirty six hours and she was losing. Eventually she drifted into something light and fitful, dreams of clutching Spencer’s hands in hers in his kitchen until her fingers hurt following her. When she woke in the early evening it was to find she’d pressed half moons into her palms with her own nails hard enough to break the skin. 

 

Gideon had called her to check in while the night shift change went on in the deputy’s office outside her door. He told her he knew Reid was still alive, but actively avoided giving her any further details. 

 

“It’s bad, isn’t it..?” she’d whispered. 

 

“I’ll call again soon.” 

 

He hung up and she looked out of the window up at the stars starting to wink into existence in the night sky, trying desperately not to cry.

 

Around nine that night the station had emptied suddenly, most of the sheriff’s office abandoning their desks. She’d rushed to the door to watch them go, snatching up her phone as she went and stood on the steps outside, blue lights and sirens blaring as the cars wheeled away. They’d found him. They had to have found him, surely?

 

Her phone didn’t ring, though and when the cold had become too much to stand out in any longer she’d shuffled back inside, hearing the remaining officers muttering about another double homicide. 

 

Two victims. Maybe it wasn’t him…

 

Gideon must have read her mind. He didn’t call this time, but there was a message.

 

_ Married couple.  _

 

Still alive. Please, God, let them find him… 

 

At eleven she drank the coffee that was brought in for her by the night deputy, a farmer’s son looking sort who might even have been younger than her. She quickly followed it by a second, rubbing her face with the heel of her hand. She text KJ to tell her she wouldn’t be in tomorrow either and she wasn’t sure when she’d be back. The deputy took her for a shower sometime about midnight and gave her some yoga pants and a plain grey tee one of the officer’s wives had brought in for her. Small town people. Sweet like that. 

 

1:17am she got the call she thought would never come.

 

“We’ve got him. He’s safe. Take a squad car, we’re taking him to Piedmont hospital.”

 

She shook all the way on this car ride too, abandoning the officer who’d been driving to run at a sprint into the ER, boots slamming hard against the frozen pavement and carrying her through the sliding doors. Before she made it past the admittance desk a powerful pair of arms caught her about the waist and span her under her own inertia, wrenching her away from simply running onto the ward. She fought against them until a familiar voice ordered sharply,

 

“Stop! You need to calm down, stop!”

 

Terrified blue eyes had shot up to the owner of the voice as she froze, dark eyes that could only be described as haunted looking back at her. She knew that face. She’d seen it before. Grand Central, another lifetime ago…

 

“Just stop. Breathe…”

 

She knew there were eyes on her when Gideon had pulled her aside in a corridor, hands on her shoulders as he stooped in to talk to her in a low voice. She could see them in the periphery of her vision. A couple of the faces she recognised. The blonde woman dressed in bright colours and wearing thick rimmed glasses. Agent Hotchner too. Both from her trial. She’d never forget. The others she didn’t know to look at, couldn’t place which name with which, but she knew who they were. They were staring in a way that suggested maybe she was recognised, too. This was why. This was why no Washington… 

 

Spencer had been tortured. Physically and psychologically. There’d been seizures. His heart had stopped. He was going to be hospitalised a few days yet. 

 

Gideon was trying to explain it gently to her, as if it would lesson the blow. She fought hard as she could against tears, absolutely refusing to cry now. That was the last thing he needed. She couldn’t be weak now, couldn’t be in pain, because he had to be allowed room for that. She had to be still, and quiet, and just there. 

 

“He’s sedated right now. He’ll probably just sleep through the night. But I want you to be prepared. He’s going to be afraid, maybe angry, maybe-”

 

“Agent Gideon. With all due respect, you don’t need to tell me what he’s feeling… I know…”

 

He’d given her a smile that was so far beyond sad and nodded. When he led her through the hospital corridors he took her hand as if she were a child and she’d let him.  

 

“Did you call his mother..?” she murmured and he shook his head.

  
“She doesn’t need to know… It wouldn’t help.”

 

The room was well away from the noise of the ER, a private space. Gideon opened the door for her, but didn’t go in with her. She clung to his hand a long moment as she looked at Spencer in the bed, horrified by the change a few days had made. He was asleep, the lamp over the bed on a low glow. He looked grey and sunken, left side of his face swollen and mottled with bruising where he’d been beaten. His fingers were fisted tight into the covers even in sleep. She unwound her fingers from Gideon’s and took off her boots before she approached the bed in bare feet so she didn’t make any sound. 

 

Gideon closed the door once she’d settled into the chair at Spencer’s bedside, leaving them alone. There were lines of fear carved into his face still, despite being unconscious. 

 

“I’m here…” she whispered. Pale fingers touched the back of his hand, avoiding the bracelet of broken skin around his wrist where he’d been restrained. Her other hand went to his hair, gently brushing it away from his forehead in slow, careful caresses, trying to ease some of the pain out of his sleeping face if she could. He didn’t stir, whatever they’d given him leaving him oblivious to her presence, but she stayed like that, smoothing her fingers over his brow and holding his hand in the softest of grasps until it finally released from the blanket.

 

* * *

 

 

It was almost midday before he woke, his first sensation a thrill of terror. He tried to move but pain stopped him, his chest and head aching with a terrible compression, like an anvil had been dropped on him. The noise left his throat on it’s own, a frightened murmuring, a whimper in the half light of the room, and he flinched when he felt something touch his hand, snatching away on instinct, eyes shooting open. 

 

Calliope. Asleep, in a chair, in arm’s reach. She moved a little, drawing a slow breath as he stared at her, a ghost in his presence, realising what he had felt as he looked down at his hand was her fingers. 

 

If there had been any doubt in his mind up until that moment that she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, it was gone when she opened her eyes and looked at him. Her lips parted as she realised he was awake and Spencer felt his chest tighten, eyes welling. She was real. 

 

“Spencer…”

 

She touched his face, brushing his cheek with the back of her fingers, and when she leaned in to press a careful kiss to the space between his eyebrows he broke down into silent tears. 

 

“It’s okay. I know… I’m here…”

 

The hospital bed was narrow but there was room enough for her little frame to climb up beside him, the two of them turned inwards to lay side by side, close enough to one another he could count her eyelashes. No laptops this time. They lay in silence, fingers laced together between them, Spencer clinging to her hand tight enough it hurt, but she didn’t complain. 

 

“How are you here..?”

 

“You didn’t say goodnight. I just knew. So I made the call…”

 

“I’m so sorry, Calliope…” A hitch went through him and he closed his eyes, something that might have been shame in his face. 

 

“What? Why..?” 

 

“All those times- I should have come and I didn’t… I thought I would never see you again…”

 

Her free hand went to his hair, fingers brushing through his temple and tucking the strands around the curve of his ear. 

 

“Ssh… None of that matters. I always knew you were there…”

 

“But I wasn’t. I wasn’t, and I told you I would be, and-”

 

Soft fingertips on his lower lip stopped him. Bloodshot hazel eyes met hers and she tried to smile for him as she whispered,

 

“It doesn’t matter. I promise…”

 

He fell back to sleep beside her, fingers still woven through hers, his other hand holding the tip of a lock of silver blonde hair between thumb and forefinger, and Calliope slept with him, their foreheads touching. Gideon found them like that, his head around the door. He’d closed it again, and all he told the team was he was okay. He didn’t answer questions about the girl that’d showed up and was in there with him, trying to offer some last wall if he could. 


	18. The Hospital. Again.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wow. This is a BEAST. I didn't expect it to be so huge but it turned out to be. Thank you so much everyone for reading and commenting, I seriously am so flipping delighted and touched. I actually struggled with this chapter an awful lot, I'm not good at shifting between lots of characters, I prefer intimate scenarios, but the cat's out of the bag with Callie and the BAU so gotta address it sometime lol!

 

Early evening Detective Farraday had arrived at the hospital to take Spencer's statement. Calliope had offered to stay in gentle tones, but he'd shaken his head, lips pressed together in a tight line, eyes avoiding hers. Still, it'd taken a moment for him to let go of her hand so she could step out. She'd felt treacherous, leaving him, but Gideon had taken her place at his bedside for the interview, and she figured that was probably for the best anyway. 

 

Out in the corridor she slid down the wall to sit on the linoleum floor, knees drawn up, brow pressed hard into the heels of both hands, the adrenaline that had kept her going until Spencer had been found long run off and leaving her cold and weary down to the marrow of her bones. She let out a soft hiccough that might have been a sob now she was alone, allowing herself five seconds.

 

“Um, hi…”

 

Calliope's head whipped up and she quickly ran a hand under her eyes to wipe her face, the motion almost aggressive, before she looked up to the owner of the voice. She was met by a pretty round face with rouged lips, heavy framed glasses and a mass of blonde ombre curls looking down at her. A hand was held out, offering a brown plastic cup that was steaming. 

 

“You probably don't remember me…”

 

“No, I remember…” Calliope murmured, shuffling as if to get up.”Agent Garcia, isn't it?” 

 

“Penelope is fine. Don't-” 

 

As she objected though the shorter of the pair was already on her feet, arms wound around herself to hug onto her biceps. Garcia managed a tense smile and offered the cup again. 

 

“If I drink one more coffee I think I'm going to have an aneurysm,” Calliope breathed with a mirthless smile of her own. 

 

“It's chocolate.”

 

The smile was a little more genuine this time, though no less weary. 

 

“Chocolate's good. Thank you…” 

 

When she took the cup her fingers trembled and a droplet spilled over, landing on her knuckle. Calliope swore under her breath, switching hands so she could suck the scald, Garcia watching her carefully. 

 

“Why don't you come sit for a minute? They're going to be a while in there…” she coaxed, her gaze flickering to the door behind them as she spoke. Callie looked back over her shoulder as well, then shook her head. 

 

“I should wait….” 

 

“They uh- they have a lot to go over. It's okay, Reid's not going anywhere. Gideon will totally come get you when they're done…”

 

Callie's teeth gnawed at the inside of her cheek at this, then she murmured without looking away from the door, 

 

“I'm not sure I can people right now…” 

 

“Okay. So no peopling. Just us. Come on, you can't sit down there for the next hour. I mean, no offence, but you kinda look like a stiff breeze would knock you down.”

 

Callie felt a hand in between her shoulder blades, only turning under it's careful pressure when she was promised again, 

 

“You'll come right back as soon as they're finished…” 

 

It was an out of body experience, being led down to the family room by this warm stranger, every step away from Spencer feeling a betrayal. When they reached the pokey square space with it's ageing couches and water cooler, there were others in there. Some of the faces that'd been staring before. Not all of them, but the other blonde girl, and one of the guys, coffee colour skin and broad shoulders. Their gazes fixed on her again as the door opened, but before she had time to deal with that Garcia was taking charge;

 

“Upupupup! I don't care where you go but you can't stay here, my sweets. Mama needs the room.”

 

Calliope felt a muted astonishment as they obeyed, a ripple of shame and more than a little guilt going through her as they were usurped. They were Spencer's friends too, more so than she was certainly… Still, they seemed almost happy to do it, the guy leaning down to kiss Garcia's temple on the way past and mutter something in her ear. 

 

Once they were alone she allowed herself to be shuffled onto the nearest of the two couches, and as the lock on the door clicked under Garcia's hand she felt a deep, painful breath leave her body, one that had been trapped in her lungs since she'd first realised something was wrong. Garcia was beside her before she crumbled, relieving her of the cup of hot chocolate as the first sob wracked through her, her other arm winding her narrow shoulders as Callie pressed her palm over her mouth, trying to hold back the tide and failing. 

 

“Theeere it is… Alright, angel, it’s alright. You're allowed to do this in here, it's alright…”

 

She wasn’t sure how long she cried for but when it finally tailed off she felt dizzy and drained, vision foggy around the edges. A warmth in her fingers told her Garcia had handed her the chocolate back and a pressure beneath the cup told her she was trying to get her to drink. She obediently sipped, the contents cool enough now to swallow a large gulp, soothing her raw throat. 

 

“Sorry…” she mumbled when she set it to rest on her knee, 

 

“Don’t be. We’ve all had her own meltdowns already. Morgan’s gonna have chapped knuckles for a month,” the other woman breathed with a careful smile and an understanding sheen in her eyes. “I thought you might need your turn, while nobody was looking…”

 

“You don’t even know me…” Calliope muttered, passing the cup from one hand to the other as she stared down into its contents.

 

“That’s not strictly true though, is it?” was the reply, and she felt her face burning. 

 

“It’s not his fault…”

 

“Hm?”

 

“It’s not his fault… I started it. Don’t fire him. He was just trying to be nice, it’s not his fault…”

 

“Nobody’s getting fired…” Garcia replied softly, head bowed low to try and catch the other woman’s eye. “I really don’t think anybody gives two hooeys how you’re here, it’s just… it’s nice that you are… Nobody really knows what to say.”

 

“You think I do..?”

 

“Probably more than most…”

 

Calliope took another sip of chocolate, a shiver going through her. 

 

“The worst thing is everyone looking at you like you actually died…” she mumbled as she set it back onto her leg, both hands curled around it, gaze on the fibres of the carpet beneath their feet. “It’s like- You’re there. You’re there and you’re still you but everyone around you doesn’t seem to recognise you anymore… All you want is to be the person you always were and nobody lets you…”

 

“See..?” Garcia breathed, rubbing her back gently. “How are we meant to know that?”

 

“Come on, you know that, you’re profilers…” She sniffed, fingers brushing a couple of strands of hair away from her face where they’d stuck to the tears that’d been there before. 

 

“I’m not.” 

 

Glassy blue eyes flickered to the other woman’s face, and met a kind smile. 

 

“It’s good you’re here, however that happened. Nobody’s going to question it. Promise.”

 

The interview went on far longer than an hour. Calliope finished her chocolate and drew herself up to set cross legged on the couch, plucking at a loose thread in the hem of the yoga pants, head bowed low. The other woman with her didn’t prompt her to talk any further but sat in the quiet with her, pretending to read a magazine and glancing over at her every so often to check she was still holding it together. When Gideon finally knocked on the door and Garcia moved to unlock it, she lifted her pale head, her skull feeling as if it were lined with concrete. The senior agent stepped in with muttered thanks and as Callie got to her feet he reached out to touch her shoulder, her small frame prickling against the gesture on instinct. 

 

“They’ve given him another round of Valium, he’s pretty out of it.... You can go back in if you want, but he may well not even be aware you’re there. Or, you can go get something to eat, and I promise you, he won’t miss you for a little while longer…”

 

“I’m not hungry.” Callie frowned up at him, her jaw taut in her obstinance, two days on an empty stomach catching up on her but downright refusing to leave Spencer for longer than she was made to. Gideon studied her face for several protracted seconds, then nodded, well aware there were some arguments that weren’t worth having.

 

“Come on, I’ll take you back down.”

 

Spencer was propped up against the pillows in a recline when she stepped back into his room, but his eyes were closed, breathing slow. 

 

“He's had a rough couple of hours,” Gideon murmured as he ushered her inside. Calliope nodded in silence. She remembered. 

 

She settled once more into the pleather chair beside his bed, wanting to take his hand but afraid of spooking him, clutching her fingers together tightly in her lap instead. 

 

“Any problems you can send a nurse for me, I'm staying on the premises until he's discharged, so…”

 

“Thank you, sir,” she whispered, looking back at him with a thin smile. He gave her a hollow one back as he replied under his breath, 

 

“You're doing great, Miss Masterson…”

 

She'd only been able to manage a fractional nod in reply to that. After he'd left she turned her gaze back to Spencer, reaching out to draw his blankets higher when she noticed goosebumps creeping over his arms and neck. As she rearranged them as lightly as she could across his chest she caught a smattering of colour across the inside of his right elbow, then glanced at the IV in his left. Clearly they'd had a tough time finding a vein when he'd been admitted. Hardly surprising, really. She knew anxiety made veins collapse, she'd experienced it during her own hospital admission. The immediate trauma might be over but it ghosted you all through being poked and prodded and stitched and examined and medicated… 

 

As she smoothed the blanket down with gentle hands Spencer's eyelashes fluttered and then parted, pupils blown wide when he looked up at her. Fear, or meds, or maybe both. 

 

“It's just me…” she whispered, hands still resting on the blanket, not wanting to make any sudden moves. 

 

“They won't let me leave…” he mumbled in reply, words noticeably slow to form. 

 

“They just want you to rest a little while. You're not being held prisoner, they can't make you. But you know it's a good idea…”

 

“I hate hospitals…”

 

“Me too. But I am going to stay until you're okay to go home, so are your friends. Nobody's going to leave you here alone, I promise…” As she spoke she reached to very carefully run the pad of her thumb over his eyebrow, trying to soothe him if she could. His eyes slid closed again, face drawing into a frown as he swallowed, trying to gather his thoughts. 

 

“No- no more sedatives…”

 

“Okay. Okay, I promise. No more.”

 

“No more sedatives…” 

 

“I swear.”

 

He slept again after that, Callie sat with her hand laid over his, slumped forwards in the chair, cheek rest on her forearm on the mattress. At some point Garcia appeared around the door with a plastic 7-Eleven bag and set it down on the floor beside the chair, whispering with a smile that carried enough strain to make it clear she just needed to do something, 

 

“I brought contraband. You have to eat sometime, so does he, and honestly hospital food sucks, so…” 

 

Calliope had peered in the bag to find it filled with an assortment of starchy snacks, bottled waters and fruit, as well as americano coffee sachets and sticks of granulated sugar. 

 

“He'll be impossible tomorrow, otherwise,” Garcia had offered by way of explanation about the coffee. For a moment Callie had been in serious danger of crying again. 

 

The others had drifted in and out over the course of the evening, making their final stops before heading back to their hotel for the night, each stiffly introducing themselves to her while trying to pretend they didn't know who she was. The guy Garcia had kicked out of the family room stayed the longest, pulling up a chair beside hers and offering her his hand. 

 

“Derek.”

 

“Callie,” she'd whispered when she shook it and he'd smiled at her quietly. 

 

“Yeah, I know.” 

 

At least someone was up front. That helped a bit. 

 

Derek had stayed almost an hour, helping himself to the peanut butter cups Garcia had brought and by proxy managing to get her to eat some as well. When she was less tired in the days to come she’d realise she’d been played.  They hadn’t talked much, not wanting to disturb Spencer and frankly Calliope too wary of breaking his confidence further after all his worries about exposing their friendship to the world. At one point though, Derek had begun a whispered game of I Spy and managed to get a faint smile out of her before he left her for the night, picking at the leftover Reese’s. 

 

She faded in and out of sleep in the chair for a while, vaguely aware of someone spreading a blanket over her as she shifted between levels of consciousness. 

 

Spencer’s screams woke her in the small hours, the little blonde narrowly avoiding his thrashing arms to cup his face and touch her forehead to his, talking him down with soft mutterings to reassure him she was still there, his breathing coming in gasps as she held him. When the nurse had come in to try and administer another relaxant the threat of a malpractice lawsuit was enough to dissuade her, Gideon materialising in the doorway to usher her out as Calliope stared daggers after her. Between them they managed to settle him back down onto the pillows, each sat either side of his bed, Calliope with her elbows on the edge to clasp one of his hands encircled in both her small ones. She held his fingers to her cheek as she whispered some half remembered Robert Frost to him,the poem scattered in her stress addled mind, but the sound enough to quiet him it seemed;

 

“I have been one acquainted with the night, I have walked out in rain, and back in rain, I have outwalked the furthest city light…” 

 

Once she was sure he was asleep again she looked across the bed at Gideon, who was looking back at her with a penetrative gaze. 

 

“What exactly did he do to him..?” she whispered.

 

“It’s not my place to tell you that…” he muttered in reply. 

 

“Then how am I meant to help him..?”

 

“I think just keep doing what you’re doing…”

 

Come morning rounds at seven Spencer seemed more lucid, the bulk of the Valium out of his system, and he sat up straight in the bed while his vitals were monitored by a different nurse thanks to the shift change, Calliope still posted beside him in her chair, the third restless night in a row wearing on her. In between extended blinks of her heavy eyelids she caught him looking at her while the nurse took his blood pressure, the shadows in his face worse for the worried frown he was wearing.

 

“Calliope… You can go home…” he murmured, the first properly straight words he’d spoken to her. 

 

“Not today,” she breathed with a weary smile, running her hand into her hair to tug slightly against her scalp, hoping the sensation would help wake herself up. 

 

JJ was the one who intervened, appearing around the door not long after eight, some clothes and toiletries in her arms. 

 

“Hi. So, uh, we sort of noticed you didn’t have a bag and I thought maybe you’d want a change. I brought you some things of mine, there’s a bathroom at the far end of ward you can use, I’ve already asked. Spence and I could hang out a little while, right?” 

 

She’d looked to Spencer for permission to part him from this hitherto unknown companion, and after a moment of serious doubt in his face he’d finally nodded. Calliope had brushed the back of his hand before she left with a whispered promise she’d be right back, taking the offered supplies with coy thanks, and finally left once she saw JJ settle in the seat she’d left, absolutely certain he wasn’t alone. She showered in water hot enough to strip flesh from bone, folded up the first set of borrowed clothes from the police station as neatly as she could with the full intent of returning them somehow, then pulled on the wide shoulder tank and slim-leg pants she’d been given. They were far too long in the leg for her, but she bunched them up around her ankles, raked her fingers through her damp hair in place of a comb, and by the time she emerged she felt more human. When she got back to the room she could hear low voices talking inside and thought twice about going back in. Spencer had barely said a word to her, but he was talking to the JJ girl. Maybe it’d be better if she gave them some space…

 

The decision was taken out of her hands when a ward nurse moved around her to let herself into the room, carrying a breakfast tray and leaving her in the open doorway. She peered inside tentatively, seeing Spencer looking down at the food ashen faced as it was set before him, JJ gently trying to encourage him to eat. How long had it taken her, to put something in her mouth after she’d come out of surgery..? Two days? No. Three. Her mother had sat and begged her, but she’d felt constantly sick from the pain meds and the anxiety. Not until KJ had snuck her in a Starbucks latte and something hot and high fat had lined her stomach and woken up her appetite… 

 

She entered the room silently, tucking the pile she’d carried back with her on the small cabinet where she’d dumped her coat when she’d arrived, then fetched up the bag Garcia had brought, feeling Spencer’s eyes on her as she disappeared out the room again with it. 

 

After a couple of minutes she came back again, setting down the borrowed coffee cup from the nurses’ station on the table that’d been drawn across his bed, JJ raising an eyebrow, then smiling as she watched.

 

“From Penelope,” Callie breathed, tearing open a couple of the sugar packets and pouring them into the steaming mug of coffee she’d also sweet talked the nurses into helping her prep, Spencer staring she swirled it a little to dissolve the sugar, then managing something that might have been a smile if you looked hard enough. 

 

In the end he put away two cups and a slice of toast, not much but a start. JJ stayed most of the morning, allowing Calliope to curl up in the chair and sleep properly for a few hours, lulled by the comforting sound of Spencer’s voice talking to someone, even if it wasn’t her. She was only half listening as she drifted off, hearing him asking quietly about bites or something, though she could have imagined it, voices flickering in and out. 

 

_ “She looks good…” _

 

_ “She is…” _

 

In the afternoon when she woke Morgan was back, and a new face, with large dark eyes and almost jet hair. Emily. Yeah, that was it. She’d said hello yesterday. Was it yesterday? The days had all run together at this point. 

 

Calliope remained very quiet in her chair as she watched the group, suddenly feeling very much the outsider. Spencer looking a little less grey than earlier, and he was talking again, even if he was sort of withdrawn. That was progress. What were they talking about? Dissociative identity- Nope. No, this was clearly over her head. 

 

She closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep again until they left, hunkered low under the blanket. 

 

“Calliope..?”

 

He was sat on the edge of the bed when she opened her eyes and she had to work very hard to pretend not to notice the bruising on his legs. He was looking at her with that same worried expression from the morning, as if he thought maybe he’d done something wrong. 

 

“I’m still here,” she breathed and gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. He didn’t look convinced. She debated for a moment, then added quietly, “I didn’t want to interrupt…”

 

“You wouldn’t have…” he replied and at the look on his face she was up and out of the chair, gathering him up in a hug, his head on her shoulder as his seated position brought them almost at a level height. 

 

He refused dinner that evening, complaining of nausea and a headache. Gideon had come by and delivered a stack of books he’d rounded up in a local thrift store, along with the promise that he’d see about the discharge papers the following day to have him transferred back to DC as an outpatient. Calliope had to hide her disapproval at this, knowing how desperate Spencer was to be out of the hospital, but her gut saying he wasn’t ready… 

 

Nobody made to move her out that night either and she wondered if Agent Gideon or someone else had flashed some credentials and pulled some strings to allow her to stay at Spencer’s side. After lights out he’d asked her sheepishly if she’d come back up on the bed with him and she’d wordlessly acquiesced, settling to recline into the pillows beside him as he’d pulled one of the books from the pile, settling on H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine. He’d opened it up between them, silently offering her the opportunity to read along with him by the yellow light of the lamp over the bed, but after a rapid page flip every few seconds she tilt her head to peer up at him, eyebrows raised. He looked back at her with a puzzled expression, then murmured,

 

“Oh… right…” and actually gave her a sheepish smile. Calliope smiled back, trying to hide the sheer elation at the moment.

 

“Seriously?” she whispered, quiet tone not quite playful but aiming for it.

 

“Seriously,” Spencer replied, and the smile grew just a fraction. Calliope would have to kiss Agent Gideon for bringing the books, she decided. 

 

“You’re going to have to help me out, there’s no way I can keep up.”

 

He nodded and his gaze went back to the book, thumb slipping under the pages to return to the first, Calliope tucking herself in against his shoulder as he read to her in a low murmur, gradually feeling his cheek rest on her crown in turn;

 

“The time traveller, for so it will be convenient to speak of him, was expounding a recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated..."


	19. The Black Hole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, fair warning; substance abuse incoming at the end of the chapter. I have been struggling with this one for days, and then in the last hour or so it went down the rabbit hole I knew this fic needed to eventually ^^; Still, I honestly can't tell if this is dire or not, I've been picking at the first 1500 words for the better part of the week, which likely means they're overworked, then wrote the last 1500 or so literally in the last 60 minutes, so it's in a very raw and unchecked state on the back end. Not a great combo! Any feedback would be very much appreciated. Thanks for reading x

Spencer had fought against sleep as long as he could that night, continuing to read aloud long after Calliope had slipped into dreaming beside him, her fingers curled around his bicep, waves of ash hair soft against his neck as she’d huddled into him. It was almost enough to have him feeling safe, the warmth of her next to him. Not quite, but almost. He kept reading to her past the witching hour, truly afraid of stopping and allowing the room to fall to silence, until his body had given out, the nauseating headache that had been dogging him all day following him into unconsciousness.

 

In his dreams Raphael had a body all it’s own. Not Tobias Hankel’s and not Charles Hankel’s. They were there, but separate, lurking in the shadows of the dilapidated lodge, Raphael free of them, a towering, monstrous creature with three faces. A man, a ram, and a lion with bloodied maw. All it’s eyes burned with white fire, mammoth black wings spread open so wide they were pulling the shack to pieces, the angel’s sword pressing against his chest, puncturing his sternum as it commanded,

  
“Choose.”

 

And everyone was watching; his team, his mother, Tobias, Charles…. Calliope too, a pale ghost of a shape in the centre of them all, her large eyes absolutely terrified. She was bleeding, the wounds that she’d promised him were healed open and pouring crimson again. 

 

“Choose one to die or I shall end them all in holy fire.”

 

“Please- please don’t make me, I can’t, I don’t want to, please-”

 

“Choose!”

 

The ceiling was caving in and there were flames licking at his skin, a wall of fire between him and everything that mattered most. Calliope was calling out his name, mouth unmoving. She was so afraid. He couldn’t move though. He was burning, every part of him under siege by fire, this was Hell and he was burning and Calliope was calling for him and he couldn’t move-

 

“Spencer!”

 

Skull and vision burned when he slammed back into his body and opened his eyes, the call enough to wake him this time. He saw Calliope’s face through the fog in time to fight the instincts telling him to throw off whatever was restraining him, realising it was her holding his cheeks in soft palms, thumbs brushing his skin.

 

“There you are…” she breathed as he met her gaze, porcelain features saturated with worry. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t real. You were dreaming…” She was still beside him, just where he’d left her, the warmth of her tangible through the blankets between them. Safe. 

 

No. No this wasn’t right. It was bad for her, being here. She- she must be looking at him and seeing herself, she shouldn’t be here… The dream was telling him that, his subconscious pointing out what he was too cowardly to admit to himself, because of his own selfishness... 

 

She was talking to him but the words drifted over him, oblivious to what she was trying to tell him. Behind his eyes he felt as if an icepick were boring into his optic nerve. He was trembling too, he could feel it. She thought it was fear. She was whispering to him, her head tucked in close on the same pillow as his, fingers at his temple, tracing through wisps of hair dampened with sweat. He couldn’t let her see what he could already feel was happening to him. She- she just- all that trust… Had anybody ever trusted him the way she did..?

 

He had to had to get her away. Home. New York. Untouchable. Wounds closed. Safe.

 

“What time is it?” His voice cracked as he spoke, throat coarse and raw. Had he been yelling out?

 

“Almost five. Too early yet,” she whispered, her hand leaving his hair to touch the back of her fingers to his forehead, feeling for his temperature. “You're running a little warm. I'm going to get you some water, okay?” 

 

Every atom of him screamed against letting her go. Rationality was something he’d always prided himself on and the logical part of his mind knew she wasn’t really going anywhere at all, that there was no danger here to her, but still, when she’d slipped off the bed and out of the room the panic that seized him had threatened to cut off his ability to breathe, and by the time she came back he was sheened with a cold sweat. 

 

“Hey…” she whispered when she saw the moisture on his brow, tucking her fingers in close to the nape of his neck as he took the cup of cold water and swallowed it’s entire contents without looking her in the eye. “You’re okay…”

 

That wasn’t the problem though. He couldn't tell her what the problem was. He couldn’t tell her that he was terrified because now she was in the darkness with him too and it was all his fault…

 

New York. Her friends and her mother and her apartment. Home. Safe. Away from him.

 

He hadn’t gotten back to sleep and by dint of that neither did Calliope. She sat in the armchair by his bedside quietly, legs drawn up to curl beneath herself in the bucket of the seat, her head rest in her palm, waiting for him to tell her what he needed. Silence hung in the room a long time, Spencer staring down at his hands rather than look at her, until just before seven he’d whispered,

 

“I want them to take this thing out of my arm…”

 

Calliope had glanced up from her semi-trance in the chair, seeing his fingers on the IV line, wondering for a moment if he might rip it out, the way he was looking at it. 

 

“Okay. I’ll speak to the nurse…”

 

The nurse had refused to discuss his treatment with her when she’d gone to the desk, citing patient privilege, but had agreed to speak with him directly about the the IV. Calliope waited outside, exhaustion and frustration with the helplessness the conversation had stirred up in her leaving her in tears she didn’t want Spencer to see. Gideon had materialised in the corridor from whatever part of the hospital he’d spent the night in while she was still out there, brushing a hand over her upper arm to comfort her before he’d stepped into the room too, his voice in the muted mix behind the door with Spencer’s and the nurse’s. Of course he’d have authority. He was probably power of attorney or something. And what was she to Spencer, anyway? Some stranger being allowed to keep him company on the persuasion of the FBI. Not family. Not part of this team. Not anything. 

 

Still, when the nurse had finally left and she’d entered the room to find Spencer sat on the edge of the bed dressed and lacing up his shoes, she wondered if perhaps she was the only one around him that hadn’t lost their mind. 

 

“What are you doing..?” 

 

Slender fingers paused mid-loop before he looked up at her, Gideon hovering in the edge of her vision and packing up the books he’d delivered previously, seemingly on board with what was happening. 

 

“I’m going back to DC,” Spencer breathed. Calliope stared back at him as though she’d been slapped in the face. 

 

“They cleared you to fly..?” 

 

He nodded and went back to tying his shoes, gaze cast down. Seeming to sense the shift in the air, Gideon quietly excused himself with the murmur that he was going to call around the team and organise them down to the airport, leaving Calliope frozen on the spot staring at the thin shadow that had been her friend. 

 

“Spencer… You were in cardiac arrest three days ago…”

 

“I’m fine… There- there’s already a doctor who has my file back home, he’s going to see me on an outpatient basis for the next few days, it’s all been agreed. I’m fine, Calliope.”

 

“Spencer-”

 

“I need- I need to be out of this hospital. I need to be away from here…”

 

She wanted to argue. Wanted to flat out refuse his reassurances. But she remembered what she’d told Garcia before. That when she’d been at this point, all she’d wanted was to be treated like a normal human being… 

 

He was staring up at her from his perch on the side of the bed, a pleading in his eyes. She met his gaze. Held it a long moment. 

 

“Let me find my boots.” Her voice was soft, non combative. She understood. 

 

Callie moved to dig her shoes out from under the chair she’d been occupying much of the last few days, tugging them on with fingers that trembled from weariness. Her whole body was threatening to give out on her. At least in DC she might be able to get a couch to sleep on, maybe an airbed if she could find a Target-

 

“Calliope…”

 

When she looked up Spencer was watching her over his shoulder, a heaviness about him that seemed to be pulling him down right through his spine. 

 

“What is it?” 

 

She was up on her feet and stood beside him in the time it took him to work up to an answer, hips leaning back into the bed as she crossed her arms over her chest rather than reach for his hand, something about the gesture that had linked them together so much over the last couple of days suddenly feeling wildly inappropriate. His were roped together tight in his lap, fingers clinging to themselves, tension running all through his wrists and forearms. 

 

“You can go home…”

 

Her eyebrows lifted almost imperceptibly at this, but she didn’t say anything yet, waiting for something that made more sense. Spencer sighed into her silence, then rubbed a hand down his face, pinching the bridge of his nose before it fell back into his lap. 

 

“You didn’t need to come all this way, I- You can go home. It’s okay. I promise. You’ve got your own life to be getting on with, and I’m fine, the FBI has protocols in place for incidents such as this, and I’ve got a BA in Psychology too, so really I know exactly how to appropriately deal with any symptomatic trauma responses I may experience, I just think- I just think-”

 

“You don’t want me to come with you…” Calliope breathed, being very careful to keep any emotional responses of her own out of her voice, although internally there was something potentially cataclysmic occurring she couldn’t put a name to yet. “I- Of course. No Washington. I know the rules…”

 

“It’s not that-”

 

“Spencer. It’s okay. I understand…”

 

Lie. She didn’t understand. But this wasn’t about her. If he didn’t want her there, she couldn’t force herself into his world any further.

 

Spencer risked looking up at her from his hands and she smiled weakly back at him, head tilt a little, everything about her face soft. He considered reaching out and touching her cheek, but of course he didn’t, not sure where the instinct even came from. He just wanted her there, but knew she couldn’t be. He couldn't do this to her. She needed to be safe, at home, with everyone who loved her most, back in the light, not being pulled down by him into memories of the worst days of her life by him and whatever was happening to him...

 

And besides, if he said he was fine enough times and with enough conviction, he probably would be.

 

She sat up on the side of the bed with him until Gideon came back, the pair of them in silence. A knock on the door heralded the senior agent, his dark head peering in to let him know there was a car out front when he was ready and they could drop Calliope off at the airport too. When he ducked out again she shook her head, whispering,

 

“I’d rather make my own way, if it’s all the same to you…”

 

Spencer looked down at her a long moment, then nodded. She must have felt a total public spectacle the last few days… 

 

When she hugged him goodbye he held on as long as he could, her small frame almost vanishing into his arms, warm body pressed into his with everything she could muster. Her orange blossom scent was missing, replaced by JJ’s borrowed shampoo, leaving a pang of regret for him in it’s absence. Olfactory information was almost the most essential when building memories and hers wasn’t there… 

 

She kissed his cheek again, and for the second time he failed to do so in return. This time because he felt so utterly unworthy of that contact, as if doing so might spread a little more darkness right onto her skin. Had Gideon told her everything that’d happened? That he’d chosen one life over another, simply because he was told to? That he’d killed his assailant while she’d had such terrific capacity for empathy that she’d pitied hers..? 

 

He didn’t deserve that cheek kiss from her. She absolutely did not deserve one back from him.

 

She’d watched from the hospital doors as Gideon had guided him to the waiting taxi, still limping through his right leg. Looking back at her from the car window, he saw her lift her hand in a mournful sort of wave, the image impressed in his mind’s eye as the car pulled away. She’d come all this way and he was just- leaving her behind... 

 

On the jet he was finally able to charge his phone, switching it on to find Calliope’s increasingly frantic messages waiting for him. In the air and the privacy of the plane’s bathroom he played the voicemails back, trying to recall the hug down to the last atom of contact between them.

 

_ “You not being here would be a black hole to me. You know what I mean when I say that, right? It’s that void that sucks in everything around it. Matter, gravity, even light…” _

 

He had never felt more alone than he did that afternoon when Gideon had dropped him off at his apartment. He’d offered to stay, to take him back out again and bring him home to his place, or take him out to the cabin. Spencer had declined each time, just not willing to talk through what had happened all over again. Everyone knew, right? They’d all seen. He didn’t need to talk. Didn’t want to. Still, locking Gideon out of his apartment when he’d finally persuaded him to leave had felt very final and the space was more gaping than it had ever seemed before.  

 

Tomorrow he’d have a psych eval, one of what would likely be many. He’d see the doctor. He’d probably see Strauss. There’d be so many questions to answer. Everyone probing him for every minutest detail about Atlanta…

 

4pm. Would Calliope have landed yet? Probably. But she’d hopefully be asleep, or at her mom’s. Her mother seemed one of those warm, overly maternal sorts who’d wrap her up in love, safe and sound when she was home. That was good. He hoped that’s where she was. He wouldn’t call her. 

 

Morgan and JJ both called him over the course of the evening, just ‘checking in’ on him. Both had offered to pop by. He still said no, caught in the predicament of an introvert desperately needing someone but wanting no-one… 

 

He tried to sleep, but every time he closed his eyes he saw Tobias’ face, looking up at him with such a bewildered sort of relief even while he was in agony, blood running from his mouth. He tried to eat, attempting some soup, but after three mouthfuls he’d stumbled to his bathroom to throw up. Crawling back back to his bed, he crushed his pillow to his chest, a poor facsimile for the warmth and sheer power of embrace Calliope’s parting hug had been. The nightmares followed him, Raphael demanding he choose over and over and piercing him with a flaming sword every time he refused, the faces of everyone precious to him watching on blankly, Calliope at the very front of the group, her own blood pooling around her feet-

 

The impact of landing on the floor had shocked him awake. He stared blankly at the ceiling of his apartment, breathing drawn in ragged gasps as he tried to orient himself, face itching with hot tears. He’d thrown himself from his bed…

 

Scrabbling around semi-blindly as he still shook off his dream, he finally grabbed up his phone, sat curled on the floor between his bedside cabinet and the wall when he unlocked it. It wasn’t even ten at night yet. Still early enough to keep his promise…

 

_ Goodnight, Calliope. _

 

When the text was gone he played her voicemail again, a shudder going through him as he fought back tears. When he’d been in her hospital room she had  _ smiled _ at him. She’d been butchered, carved up to the very edge of death, and she’d  _ smiled _ at him. How had she done that? How had she possibly been able to find that within herself?

 

He was going to lose everything. They’d take one look at him tomorrow and revoke his credentials. He’d lose his job, his team, everything that’d finally made him feel as if he fit. He’d never be able to pass. He’d never be able to smile like that…

 

He flinched as his phone buzzed, a text coming through. 

 

_ Goodnight, Spencer. I have my phone in my hand. If you want me, I am here. If you need me, I can be there. X _

 

“I need you…” he mumbled to the empty apartment. 

 

In the days after, he’d rationalise the decision he made next to himself a thousand different ways. That the rapid volley of condensed doses had begun a chemical dependency he had no control over. That the intense stream of emotions he was experiencing were being heightened by an altered brain chemistry and if he couldn’t balance it out then he’d certainly fail his psych eval. That he just needed to get a few hours unbroken sleep...

 

He couldn’t call anyone. He couldn’t call Calliope. He wasn’t like her. He couldn’t smile and show his scars like badges of honour… 

 

The self loathing and disgust only lasted until the syringe was empty. He didn’t hear it clatter on the floor when it rolled out of his fingers. He was somewhere far above, dreaming of a night sky, far more stars in it that had any scientific right to be there, and in the centre of it all a swirling pit, pulling everything in, drawing him up weightless and unafraid. He rode the event horizon of the black hole and let it swallow him into a perfect nothingness, no horrors able to follow where he was going. 


	20. The Spiral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update time. Super tired, not particularly proof read, so I apologise for errors. Not sure about this chapter either, I didn't want to just rehash what we'd seen of Spencer's addiction in the episodes, so tried to swing it from Callie's side instead. Hm. Yeah. I might pull this and rewrite.

_**"Find me when you are hurting. Find me when you are broken. Find me when your mind is a mess and your heart is falling apart. I have already seen you as a beautiful, ancient thing that lives in dreams. And even beautiful, ancient things are allowed to feel broken, and loved for it anyway. - Nikita Gill"** _

 

 

* * *

 

 

The Skype calls had been the first thing to fail. Calliope hadn’t expected one in the first few days, knowing it was too much to ask. She did her best to be respectful of Spencer’s space, waiting for him to come to her while trying in her own way to let him know she was there. She still messaged him each morning, the same as she always had. Sometimes he messaged back and sometimes he didn’t. There was nothing particularly odd about that, though. She was used to his schedule making his replies sporadic. He still wished her goodnight too, the ritual resumed, validated by the early warning it’d given her about Atlanta.

 

The first Friday night he missed their video slot she hadn't been all that worried, in the grander scheme of things. She left herself signed in, available if he wanted her, but he didn’t appear. He still text her goodnight, though, so she didn’t press the matter. On the Sunday she spoke to him on the phone for the first time since they’d parted at the hospital. He was quiet, but again that was to be expected. She made a point of not asking how he was, remembering how she’d hated hearing that from everyone. Instead she asked after his team now that she’d met them, and that was enough to get him to open up a little.

 

The second Friday when he didn’t sign in she considered texting Gideon. Spencer had told her he was already back in the field, too damn early for her mind, but he’d been lax in letting her know where. She tried to rationalise to herself that he was a very private person, and that she’d violated that privacy by showing up at the hospital down in Georgia uninvited. He might be trying to establish some of the boundaries between her and his job again. If she text Agent Gideon, she’d be overstepping in a big way, she knew. He’d given her that card for emergencies…

 

The last time had turned out to be an emergency though.

 

He text her goodnight a little before midnight that evening and she put Gideon’s contact details away in her wallet. She didn’t question why he’d missed her again. Everything was an immense effort right now for him, she knew that for a fact, and he didn’t need additional pressure from her.

 

She did what she could to be normal for him, waiting for him to be ready. She sent him letters still, about nothing much, trying to keep the lines of communication open. There were Polaroids of the first snowdrops in Central Park, the thousands of red lanterns down Chinatown during Chinese New Year and the fireworks that followed snapped from her apartment roof, the nine year boy old playing virtuoso cello down in the subway; every good and bright thing she came across, slipped into envelopes with his name on them. She tried not to linger on the glaringly obvious; he’d stopped writing back.

 

There were still phonecalls. Sometimes. Once her cell rang at three in the morning. She’d rolled over, dazed with sleep, answering in a haze without opening her eyes.

 

“Mmm… hello..?”

 

She’d been greeted with silence. Maybe fifteen seconds. Then the line had gone dead. In the morning when she was more coherent she’d checked her phone logs to find it’d been Spencer’s number. She had tried to call him back but he didn’t answer.

 

The night she really knew she was losing him was the night she’d sat at her easel, phone cradled between her cheek and shoulder as she worked on whitewashing a canvas ready for her next painting, almost able to hear the Spencer she knew down the other end of the line;

 

“I promise you just- look out of your window, I can see it now; if you look along Orion’s belt and follow the constellation’s sword, you can see the nebula with your naked eye, it’s that sort of greenish blue fuzz there, it’s the only time it’ll be visible in our hemisphere without a telescopic lens for the next four years-”

 

“Spencer, I live in New York, do you know how long it’s been since I saw stars?” She’d laughed softly as she’d shifted the phone from one shoulder to the other to keep her neck from aching in it’s awkward position, glad to hear something of his old animated self coming down the line. “You’re not telling me you can see it down there in Washington? You’ve got to be as dayglow as we are, surely?”

 

It had taken him too long to answer.

 

“I’m not in Washington…”

 

“Where are you?” Her roller had paused on the canvas, a couple of fat drops of white paint dropping from it to land on her bare foot.

 

“Westchester…”

 

“Westchester as in Westchester County?”

 

“Mmhm…”

 

Another droplet of paint ran off onto her foot.

 

“Oh.”

 

He was forty five minutes drive away and hadn’t thought it worth mentioning until now.

 

“We could get coffee, once your case is over..?” She tried to make it a nonchalant suggestion, an offhanded thought almost, not wanting him to feel beholden to her. Still, when he’d murmured,

 

“I can’t see you, Calliope…” and excused himself off the phone a few moments later, the rejection had left her staring at the white canvas before her, turning numb from centre of her chest outwards. This was different to missed trips and cancelled flights. This was a flat out refusal. Before he’d tried and it’d just gone wrong, but he’d seemed though like he had _wanted_ to get there. Now there was apparently a total disinterest. There'd not even been an explanation as to why.

 

She couldn’t sleep that night, her mind caught up in the way his mood had turned on a dime. She had no right to be hurt, she knew. He had his own issues to deal with and he didn’t owe her anything, maybe- maybe he just didn’t have the energy for her right now… Maybe she’d overestimated their level of closeness, and actually in the wake of his abduction he needed his real friends, not the stray he’d picked up through his job…

 

That was the last phone call. In the weeks that followed she’d turn Gideon’s card over in her fingers over and over again, on the edge of dialling but not actually crossing that line. The only thing that stopped her was that the texts still came. Every night, like clockwork. They were cool, impersonal, nothing there to invite conversation back, but they still came, two simple parting words at ten pm each and every evening, the one assurance she had that he was still alive even if she was allowed nothing else;

 

_Goodnight, Calliope._

 

She kept writing, though each letter became shorter as she seemed to be corresponding with a ghost. She wanted to tell him she missed him, that she was still there waiting for him, that she was still his friend for as long as he wanted her, but it all felt too much when put on paper. Unable to tell him any of those things, she wrote that her door was still open and left it at that.

 

The texts stopped after that too.

 

She called Gideon once. He’d sounded genuinely surprised to hear from her. Told her Spencer was all of twenty foot away from him in the office, asked if she’d like to speak to him. She had said no.

 

There was one last letter.

 

_Spencer,_

 

_I wanted to tell you that I am sorry. I know something has gone wrong, but I can’t figure out what, and I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t think you actually want me to. Maybe that’s what I haven’t been getting. So, I am going to stop trying. I think that’s maybe the best thing I can do now._

 

_I hope you’re okay. I hope someone is being good to you. I hope you are being good to yourself._

 

_I’m sorry that I couldn’t give you what you gave me._

 

_Yours, still,_

 

_Calliope_

 

* * *

 

The day Spencer received Calliope’s goodbye, he lost five hours. He was face down on his bed when he woke, the paper crushed in his fist, barely able to focus through the fog of misery and chemical comedown. Some wicked part of himself that was sober enough to function had reminded him this is exactly what he’d wanted; to remove her from his path of his self-destruction, so she didn’t get caught by the shrapnel. The letter shouldn’t have cut him in two. The loss of her shouldn’t have left him breathless and dizzy enough that he’d physically gone down, without the physiological or emotional capacity anymore to stop it from keeling him over. It had all been his design. This is what he had wanted. What she had needed…

 

When he was able to stand he shuffled to his writing desk, dropped into the seat and carefully smoothed the paper out with trembling fingers. How had this all began? He really couldn’t remember anymore. It seemed another lifetime ago, that the first envelope had landed on his desk in the bullpen. Sunshine in a packet, with the yellow flower paper…

 

He slipped the letter away into the drawer where the rest lay safe, unwilling to part with it, even if the words on it felt world ending.

 

He’d barely registered what JJ had told them about the case in New Orleans the following morning, not able to stomach looking up at the crime scene photos. Maybe this was it. Maybe he’d finally lost it. He’d been slipping and slipping, maybe- maybe this was the end. He’d get through this case, and then maybe he’d leave his badge and gun in Hotch’s office once everyone had gone home, so he wouldn't have to explain himself…

 

He’d never broken rank before but when they’d landed in Louisiana he’d purposefully gone AWOL from the job, because he just didn’t have anything left to give. With his mind pretty much made up, what did he actually have to lose by defying orders? He needed to see how the other side lived, what might be waiting for him, if he was lucky enough to survive much longer.

 

Ethan had been his counterpart in countless ways and Spencer suspected he would have been the better profiler, too. He had taken one look at him and instantly _known_. That said everything, really. Either Ethan was genuinely better than him or he screamed junkie. He hoped it was option one, but he knew in his heart it wasn't. He wasn't fooling anyone and now he'd been called out.

 

Ethan seemed genuinely happy with the choices he'd made in battling his own demons and Spencer found himself intensely envious for a moment. On this side of the coin he might have been calm and content and without two bucks to call his own but free from the darkness. He thought about asking him if he was married, but decided against it. Better not to know.

 

The following night after the case was over he’d gone back to Ethan’s bar a second time, skin itching already from withdrawal. Gideon had been the one to find him. Probably the only person in the world who wouldn’t judge him if he just said- if he just told him-

 

“I’m struggling…”

 

That had been enough. His mentor had looked at him with a gaze that was absolutely knowing, and in the way that only he seemed to know how, he’d let him know it was okay to be lost, so long as he didn’t stay that way. So long as he came back to them.

 

They’d sat for a while after that, listening to the jazz piano filtering through the room, Spencer’s head aching, a low throbbing in the base of his skull.

 

“I’d cover for you, you know, if you needed some time...”

 

Spencer blinked and slid his gaze slowly over to Gideon, who was looking back at him levelly, temple rest on his fingertips.

 

“We could call it a family emergency. People know better than to pry about that. It’s a human resources nightmare. If you wanted to take a couple of weeks to straighten some things out…”

 

“I… medical leave?” he murmured doubtfully, the senior agent seemingly reading his mind as he shook his head a fraction.

 

“Personal time. Nothing that requires any forms or disclosures on your personnel file. A couple of weeks would probably do it, if you used it wisely, don’t you think?”

 

“Three days is supposed to be the average time frame-”

 

“Uhuh. A couple of weeks. I can sign that off. I can do that today.”

 

Spencer nodded slowly, looking down into his untouched brandy as he did. He had been right. This was the end. Get off the bus here or die trying...

 

“How’s your friend? The painter? New York’s what, three hours flight from here..?”

 

“Two hours forty seven…” Spencer muttered, his insides seizing at the hint at Calliope. “I don’t have any friends in New York, though.”

 

“You sure about that?”

 

“She’s gone…”

 

“Huh. Odd. Must have been someone else that called me the other day.”

 

Hazel eyes had flickered up from the brandy glass, taking the bait. Gideon met his gaze with a kind smile when it landed on him.

 

“There are some good clinics in the city, if you ever had need for that kinda thing…”

 

* * *

 

 

It had taken him a long time to enter Calliope’s apartment building. He didn’t know how long he’d stood outside, shivering in the still cold wind that was tumbling between buildings, lifting the tips of his scarf and tousling his hair in his eyes. Going inside seemed an impossible thing. If he turned around he could be in DC before midnight, she’d never have to know…

 

It was barely more than a crawl that got him up the flights of stairs to her floor, his tall frame clinging to the handrail for support, legs lead-weight and muscles starting to burn. How much of that was psychosomatic in fear of reaching the door that awaited him at the top, though, he wasn’t sure.

 

He sat on the top step a while, head in his hands, anxiety constricting his chest and labouring his breathing. He couldn’t knock, he couldn’t, he- he’d undone everything, he couldn’t knock now like he’d be welcome, what was he even doing here, how had he let Gideon put this into his head-

 

The knock had not been much more than a tap of his knuckles. There was no answer for a long while and he was just reasoning with himself that it was a clear indicator from the Universe that he should go home when the door swung open. Callie wasn’t on the other side of it. Dark, kohled eyes framed by raven black bangs peered up at him from a young face, something familiar-

 

“Dude, if you’re here for class you’re way late, we set up like forty minutes ago-”

 

“Melissa… Hi…”

 

The young woman frowned, then broke into a grin as the puzzle piece clicked into place.

 

“FBI guy. Hi! Just a second- Callie!”

 

Spencer winced as she yelled, a fresh bolt of adrenaline going through him. She wasn’t alone. He’d just turned up uninvited at the worst possible time, on the edge of losing it physically and mentally-

 

“Cal! There’s a guy at the door for you!”

 

Melissa had turned away, ducking back into the apartment, leaving the door open. He could hear more voices inside. Oh God… She was teaching, her home was full of people-

 

“Melissa, inside voice, geez-”

 

He was frozen in the doorway when she appeared in the hall, still tying the sash of her blue velvet bathrobe, too big for her and slipping off her right shoulder, skin almost white in contrast to the plush fabric she was wrapped in. As her eyes landed on him she stopped dead, blood visibly running into her face and flushing her cheeks.

 

“Spencer..?”

 

“I- I can come back, I didn't think-”

 

She was down the hall in a heartbeat and it took everything he had left not to fall into her as her arms wound around him, drawing him into a hug that seemed too all encompassing for her small frame, as though she defied physics to embrace him as completely as possible. He buried his face in her shoulder, a sob muffled into her skin, vaguely aware of her whispering to him as he felt her fingers curling through the hair at the nape of his neck;

 

“I've got you. It's okay, I've got you... I thought you were never going to come…”


	21. The Confession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update time ^^ As always, thank you so, so much for reading. I'm really sort of stunned people are into this fic to be honest XD Your comments always really make my day.
> 
> For this chapter, warnings for mentions of substance abuse and very, very mild suicidal thoughts. Like, blink and you'll miss that. 
> 
> Also, random thing; I have a playlist of music I listen to for writing, and tend to loop one or two songs for each chapter, depending on the mood. I thought it might be fun to link the pieces for each chapter, sorta like a soundtrack almost. So yeah, if you want some suggested listening while you read, this one was written to the following songs:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWtx0AvGAlw  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6VDQaiXp2s
> 
> If people are into it I'll go back and link for the other chapters XD

She left him in her bathroom while she cleared her class out of the apartment, giving him a private cloister for a few minutes, the only closed space she had. Sat on the rim of her tub, he could hear her outside the door, offering apologies and refunds for the disruption, promising to reschedule, but this was sort of an emergency… He swallowed as he listened, a lump of guilt clogging his throat. He should have called, or something. He should have asked. Although, if he had stopped to try and do that, he knew he never would have made it onto the plane. He'd still be in Louisiana, or maybe his apartment in DC, on the edge of doing something truly terrible, whether by accident or design… 

 

It was almost a quarter of an hour before everything finally went quiet and there was the sound of the chain being moved across the front door, the void of voices very sudden. There hadn't been any real quiet for him for days. 

 

The bathroom door opened slowly and Calliope's silvery head appeared, watching him. When he didn't look up she padded across the blue and grey shower rug and sat on the side of the bath beside him, toes only just touching the floor, hands folded in her lap, waiting gaze on him. He eventually peered down at her and when he did she smiled quietly, only a whisper of one really, a wordless reassurance they were okay. It was enough to tip him over again, tears brimming from shame and exhaustion and the hurt he'd been trying to deny for weeks. She saw him go, still silent as she reached out to cup the nape of his neck, drawing him in to rest his head on her shoulder, and he closed his eyes as he sank against her, her hand travelling over the space above his shoulder blades in slow circles.

 

He might have slept there a little while. Honestly, he didn't know. But things seemed to slow, the edge of the bath beneath them uncomfortable but the room warm and Calliope warmer still, the bathrobe she was wrapped in soft and smelling familiarly of her, the something that had been missing the last time she'd hugged him. Right here was better than anywhere he’d been since Atlanta… 

 

“Come on. Come with me.”

 

Her voice had come from somewhere a thousand miles away. His head was unbelievably heavy when he lifted it at her coaxing, vision blurred around the edges, underwater maybe. He felt gentle fingers curl around his, drawing him away from the bathroom. There were lights, the city in hues of orange and gold coming through the window, cloaking her in shimmer as she moved. 

 

She settled him onto one of her printed beanbags, vague rustling around him as it moulded to his aching body. His vision cast out of the window rather than look at her, watching the traffic go by beneath them with glazed eyes. Now he'd stopped he was too fatigued and drawn too thin to make much sense of anything. 

 

Calliope was moving slowly, careful not to do anything too sudden around him. She drew his bag off his shoulder and set it safe for him on the floor by his knee, then went for his jacket next, barely touching him as he slid it off his arms. It went over the back of a chair by her workstation, and as she turned away to hang it he subconsciously tugged at the cuffs of his shirt sleeves, pulling them as low as he could around his wrists. 

 

When she came to settle with him she nudged another of the beanies with her foot around the wooden floor until it was opposite him and sat on it cross legged, hands tucked into her lap, waiting once more. 

 

A car horn honked down in the street, muffled by the glass but the only audible thing outside of their breathing. Calliope didn’t touch him again, just waited, quiet and still, clear blue gaze taking in how hollow and desaturated he was. 

 

“I never could understand how you did it…” When he eventually spoke the words were barely a mumble, each syllable threatening to crack under the weight of the emotion behind them. 

 

“What do you mean?” she whispered, head tilt as she peered up at him, a worry in her clear eyes that made them larger than usual.  

 

“How you were so- so normal… After- You know, you made a joke in the hospital. I suppose you don’t even remember. It- it was the strangest thing to me, that you could do that...”

 

“I remember.” Calliope exhaled in a soft sigh, fingers fiddling with a silver anklet on her left leg. “I don’t know if normal is the right word for it, though, Spencer. I had a long path, same as you. It wasn’t instantly okay… It took work.”

 

“I tried. I really did. I thought if I just kept pushing, kept trying to go back to how things were before, then eventually they would. But it isn’t working. I should be able to do this, but I can’t. I’m not strong enough…”

 

She sucked her lower lip for a long moment as she listened to him, then brushed her hair behind one ear to buy a couple seconds more thought about her next words;

 

“There’s nothing wrong with not being okay. You- you want to know my big secret, about how I got better?”

 

Spencer let out a quiet sniff as his head twitched in a nod, still watching cars roll by dozens of feet below, multicoloured beetles in the city lights. 

 

“I asked for help…”

 

Burning eyes slid closed, because if he looked at her he might crumble like so much ash. He flinched when her hand landed on his, soft fingertips brushing over his knuckles, trying to ease away his clenched fist. He took a deep breath, fighting back the vice grip pain in his chest and when he was finally able to open his eyes again she was looking back at him calmly, her thumb running across the back of his fingers.

 

“I’m in trouble…” 

 

The words had left him of their own volition, drawn out of him maybe by the gentle coaxing of her hand on his. Calliope held his gaze and nodded slowly, her face unchanging. His breathing hitched, the stopper beginning to come undone, unable to fight welling eyes.

 

“I nee- I need help…”

 

“Okay,” was her whispered reply and she was leaning forwards from her seat to kneel on the floor before him, catching him as he went to pieces. She held him as he wept like a child, the softness of her cheek pressed to his, fingers resting in the hollow spot on his neck beneath his ear, a slow swaying going through her to try and calm him. His hands clung to the fabric of her robe at the small of her back, terrified she’d pull away, until he cried himself out and turned sort of numb, his breathing broken by occasional shudders while she still murmured to him; 

 

“It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay…”

 

“I’m sorry…”

 

“You don’t need to be sorry…”

 

He shook his head slowly into her palm. She didn’t know, still, not really… 

 

He thought asking for help would be the hardest part. He was wrong. 

 

Aching fingers unwound from the velvet of her dressing gown, his head bowed as one hand reached to his bag, fingers trembling as he fumbled with the clasp. Calliope was watching his face, her features a perfect knit of confused and concerned. Unable to meet her eye, he pulled what he was looking for from the satchel, shuddering again as his other hand drew her small one away from the warm spot she’d left on the skin of his neck, pressing something into her palm and curling her fingers closed around it. 

 

“Spencer-”

 

She never finished the thought, her gaze falling to what he’d given her when he let go and allowed her to open her hand up again; a small glass vial with a rubber seal and printed label pressed onto it. 

 

_ Dilaudid -HP. Hydromorphone 2mg/ml. _

 

Slowly her eyes lifted to his face and when he finally met them he thought she might cry too. She drew a  breath, centring herself. The vial went into the pocket of her robe and Spencer hated himself for the flare of panic he momentarily felt when it disappeared from his sight. He hated himself even more when she turned her attention to his right arm, reaching to carefully unbutton the cuff of his shirt sleeve, then slide it slowly up with touches so gentle he could have imagined them. As the mottling of puncture bruises was revealed he thought he might die from the shame, physically recoiling when Calliope touched the very edge of one. 

 

“Oh God…”  It was her turn for her breathing to stutter. She was undeterred by his instinctive tug away from her, her hand following to hold his wrist, turning it outwards a little to better see the marks. “I- I saw- I thought it was a bad IV. I thought it was the nurses…”

 

“It was Tobias. At first…”

 

She looked back up at him, thumb brushing the inside of his forearm, so close to crying her eyes shone like liquid silver as they reflected the light from the window behind him. His self loathing plumbed new depths in that moment that even he didn’t know he was capable of. He’d seen her cry before, but he’d never been the one to do it to her.

 

“I’m so sorry-”

 

“Don’t.” She cut him off as both her hands went to his face, cupping his cheeks, drawing him in to touch her forehead to his. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. You don’t ever have to be sorry to me.  Not ever...”

 

“Calliope...” 

 

“Not ever. We’re going to fix this. I promise. Everything is going to be okay. I am going to help you…”

 

His reply was silence, his aching chest the only thing in the room that seemed to move as he breathed deeply, a new calm coming over him in the wake of her words. He was exhausted and in pain, beyond terrified, but as he looked into Calliope’s eyes, felt her pulse through her thumbs on his skin as she held him, he stilled, the invisible weight that was crushing him not lifted but a part of it divided off, it seemed. She looked back at him, wordlessly asking him to trust her, to believe that this would be the last hopeless moment he’d have to have. He didn’t speak, just nodded, another shudder running through him, part of him wishing he could wrap himself up in the stillness that was her and disappear into it..

 

“I’m going to have to go through your stuff…”

 

“I know.”

 

“There’s a centre a few blocks over from here-”

 

“No hospitals, please. Please, Calliope. I can’t go into some facility, they- they’ll never let me out...”

 

“Okay. No hospitals…”

 

* * *

 

 

There’d been silence as she went through his belongings, pulling out a second vial as well as the small collection of needles still in their sterile packaging. She’d checked every last seam of his bag, then gone through all the pockets of his packed clothes, as well as having him turn out the ones of what he was wearing, and even inspected the inside of his shoes. Once she was satisfied he had nothing else hidden from her she’d gone to her kitchen counter to write down what was on the vials on a scrap of paper that she tucked into a drawer before she’d dropped everything she’d confiscated in the sink. Spencer had watched from his spot by the window as she pulled a rolling pin down from a cupboard and calmly stamped one end of it into the basin, glass crunching under it as she ground everything into a paste of opiates and silica. He was caught somewhere between relieved and horrified as he watched her turn on the hot tap and flush what might have been left away down the drain. There was no going back now. 

 

She made tea, two perfumed cups of chamomile and honey, bringing them back with her and offering him one as she sank to sit amongst the cushions. He tried to hide the trembling in his fingers when he took it from her, but she spotted it. He could tell from the way she was staring. 

 

“Sorry…” he mumbled, despite her previous assurances that no apologies were necessary. 

 

“It's okay,” was the quiet reply. Her fingers tapped on her mug as she peered down into the pale gold contents, curls of steam rising from it in slow trails. “You know, you've never even mentioned his name to me before now… I had no idea that was what he was called. It's okay that you didn't, I just- I knew I was out of the loop. I had no idea how far, though…”

 

“I didn't want you to think about things like that,” Spencer murmured, staring down into his own tea. “You'd had enough for one lifetime.”

 

“It wouldn't have stopped me being there…”

 

“I know, I- that was the problem. You were being pulled into all that again, because of me. You deserved better than that…”

 

“I don't know if that was your decision to make.” Calliope let out a deep sigh, rubbing a hand through her hair as she looked up at him. “If we're going to do this, I need you to promise me something.”

 

“Anything,” he replied instantly, nodding his head in an emphatic gesture. 

 

“I need you to talk to me again, and- and not cut me off this time. I always would have helped you Spencer, but I can't if I don't know what's going on…” She was looking back down at her teacup rather than him, and for the first time he became conscious that his withdrawal from her wasn't just painful for him; he'd hurt her too. Funny, the notion had never even crossed his mind

 

“I promise…” 

 

She nodded, seemingly satisfied, and when she lifted her head she stood to shuffle her beanbag around next to his, settling back down on it beside him with a little smile that was coloured by worry. 

 

“Okay. Tell me what to do.”

 

Spencer blinked, thrown by her question for a moment, then shook his head. 

 

“I don't think there's very much to do. Just wait. ”

 

“When was the last-” 

 

“Yesterday…” 

 

Nausea rolled through him at the admission, but Callie just nodded, her porcelain features without judgement as she looked at him. His feet in their mismatched socks squirmed a little against the floor, before he added quietly, 

 

“I can already feel it…” 

 

“How bad is it going to get? I need to know.” Her voice was very gentle even in its seriousness, fingers warmed from where they'd been on her mug resting on his forearm as she spoke. He swallowed, the hard lump from before reforming somewhere behind his Adam's apple. 

 

“Bad…” 

 

“Dangerous?”

 

“I don’t think so. It’s not been long enough. I would like to think any sort of dependency would be largely psychological, although an intense addiction cycle can be formed by certain susceptible brain types in as little as two weeks, so-”

 

“You’re not an addict.”

 

He cast his eyes over to her with a hollow little smile at this, shaking his head in disagreement.

 

“I know what I am..”

 

“Spencer, I- I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but you’re  _ wrong _ .” She shifted on her soft seat, turning more to face him, her knees touching his outer thigh, both hands cupped around her mug as she gazed up at him. “Addiction is the point of destruction. Did you know that? It’s the point where something becomes the most important thing in your life, and everything else falls to the wayside in it’s shadow. It’s a really specific state of mind, and you’re not there yet. You’re not an addict. You’re self medicating. Poorly. If you were an addict, you wouldn’t be here with me. You must realise that?” 

 

“Do you really believe that?” he whispered as he looked down at her, heart hurting from her words. 

 

“BA in Psychology, right? You tell me…” she replied softly. He swallowed, considering this for several stretched seconds, then finally muttered,

  
“Maybe…”

 

“If this is going to work, you have to start being kinder to yourself… You’re a really good person, you- you’re my favourite person. You deserve some slack.”

 

He stared at her, then let out a nervous sort of exhale of a half laugh, turning his focus back on his tea, gaze low as he said quietly,

 

“I’m not sure I’ve ever been anyone’s favourite anything before...” His tongue curled against the roof of his mouth, trying to think of the right words to express a sentiment of his own in return. “I- I’m really glad you came to the door, Calliope…”

 

“Of course,” she breathed, peering up at him from beneath the wisps of her bangs. “I kept hoping you might come back in the end…”

 

They sat in quiet for a while after that, some of the rawness taken out of the air in the wake of the honest conversations. Spencer quietly marvelled at how easily she’d just accepted his presence back in her world after everything he’d done, or not done, watching her out of the corner of his eye as he sipped his tea. He felt better, in a way. Not physically. Physically he felt as if he was starting to come down with a particularly virulent flu. But he felt better for being able to be totally honest with someone. She stayed beside him, watching the city through the window until her own cup was empty, then disappeared into her bathroom for a few minutes to change into a set of paisley pyjama bottoms and white tank top. 

 

When she came back it was to find Spencer curled up amongst the cushions, tie pulled off and still clutched in his hand, slipped into sleep, his face bleached from the exhaustion of everything he’d pushed himself through to get to this point. Calliope pulled the comforter from her bed, doing her best not to wake him as she spread it over him, though she needn’t of worried; even his breathing didn’t change as it covered him, he was so dead to the world. Sitting on the floor beside him, she smoothed his hair away from his face with light fingertips, able to feel the beginnings of a fever in his brow. 

 

“It’s going to be okay…” she whispered, as much for her benefit as his. Eventually she curled up on the cushions beside him, unwilling to leave him alone to go to her bed. She’d sleep better there, anyway, knowing he was close. Able to protect him from whatever might come in the night... She only closed her eyes when they were physically too heavy to keep open anymore. It must have been past one in the morning. Her arm slipped under the blanket, taking his twitching fingers and holding them tightly, her last waking thought a prayer he slept through the night, because she couldn’t imagine what the morning might bring.


	22. The Detox

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Afternoon, all! Here we go, the chapter I know I have been waiting for for a while >.> Fair warning, it's pretty grim. Nobody thinks opiate withdrawal is going to be fun. As always, thank you very very much for reading. Kudos and comments always so gratefully received.

It began before dawn. 

 

Coldness had been what woke Calliope, her body temperature drawn down between sleeping close to the floor and the absence of Spencer’s bodyheat radiating from nearby. She wasn’t really awake when she’d reached out, searching for him and finding the empty spot where he should have been. Her body reacted before her mind was fully functional, sitting upright in a sharp motion, peering around the apartment by the light of the streets outside. One hand rubbed her face hard as she tried to force herself to. He had been there, hadn’t he?

 

“Spencer?” Her whisper was too loud in the empty loft. Shivering a little, she pushed herself to her feet, eyes landing on his jacket hung over the back of the chair. She hadn’t dreamed him there, then… 

 

“Spencer..?”

 

There was a shaft of light creeping across the polished wooden floor from beneath the bathroom door. Pausing outside, she could hear gasping from within, then heaving, the muffled noises painful to listen to as she hovered, not sure what to do. Would he want her or would being exposed during this make it worse..? 

 

“Spencer, I’m coming in...” she finally said close to the door jamb, fingers on the handle, turning it and feeling it click. He’d left it unlocked. 

 

Peering in, she found him still hanging over the lavatory, trying to fight back the violent retching that had a hold of him. How long he’d been throwing up she couldn’t say, he’d been so quiet about it, but it seemed as if all that was left now were spasms, his stomach empty. Calliope immediately moved to the sink and ran a facecloth under the cold tap, then knelt beside him, pressing the cold compress the back of his neck as he fought against his body.

 

“It’s okay, it’ll stop soon, you’re okay,” she whispered as she moved the cold flannel over his skin, unsure if he was even aware she was there. The waves of nausea that rolled through him were almost convulsive, the sight and sound of it genuinely frightening to her as a spectator, but she stayed still beside him, continuing to murmur the quiet reassurances until it finally seemed to be subsiding, the gaps between each heave growing longer. 

 

“Just breathe, you’re okay…”

 

Eventually he slumped back from where he’d been pitched on his knees to sit heavily on the linoleum floor, leaned against the bathroom wall, head tilt back and eyes closed, everything about him limp as he tried to catch his breath. Calliope leaned in to lightly dab the washcloth around his face, each touch cautious as she tried to lift away some of the sweat that was clinging to his flushed skin. 

 

“Spencer, are you with me..?”

 

Heavy lidded eyes opened just enough to look down at her in a dazed stare from beneath his lashes, unable to properly focus on her. 

 

“Uh... uhuh…” It was more an exhale that a spoken reply, a breathless utterance. 

 

“Good. I’m gonna get you some water, okay? I’ll be right back…”

 

He didn’t seem to notice when she got to her feet and left the bathroom, returning a few moments later with a bottle of water, undoing the cap as she knelt at his hip. One hand held the bottle close to him, the other tucking her fingers under his chin, trying to coax him to lift his head enough to drink. He finally swallowed a half-hearted mouthful, then when his head tipped back against the wall again he looked hazily over at her, his breathing slowing but still shallow. 

 

“Sorry…”

 

“Stop. We’re in an apology free zone right now,” she replied, blue eyes peering up at him seriously through her bangs. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

 

“Kinda warm…” He swallowed, his eyes sliding closed again, and Calliope retrieved the facecloth, returning to attentively touching it to his forehead and temples, then along his jawline. 

 

“Is that all?”

 

“Hurts…”

 

“What does?”

 

“Everything…”

 

The cloth paused in it’s travels over his skin, Calliope biting her lower lip. She studied his face, then reached to take his wrist with her free hand, fingers pressing down firmly on the inside of it and counting off in her head. Over eighty beats per minute. Not dangerous, not yet, but not normal…

 

“We need to get you off the floor... Get you changed into something more comfortable, you’re still in a sweater. Can you move?” After a stretched moment he nodded, eyes still closed as he inhaled through his nose, visibly steeling himself to the prospect. 

 

In the end she’d had to help him up, his arm slung around her shoulders and hers curled around his waist tightly to keep him upright on the journey to her bed. He’d collapsed onto it with minimal instruction, Calliope managing to pull his sweater vest up over his head and cast it aside, his button down underneath sticking to his skin. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she touched his forehead, skin burning under the back of her fingers. 

 

“You’re running really hot,” she whispered. Spencer let out a low hum, eyes still closed as he lay on his back, his voice thick when he mumbled,

 

“S’nomal…” 

 

She stared down at him and almost froze, beginning to realise the full extent of how bad things were going to get, if this was only the early stages. Instincts pushed her forwards though and she grabbed up the water bottle, sliding  her free hand under his head to lift it, touching the rim of the bottle to his lower lip. 

 

“Come on. You have to try and keep hydrated.”

 

He managed a couple more swallows before he sank back into the pillows, his jaw taut as he breathed deeply through his nose, trying to wrangle his respiration rate from what she could tell. Unsure of how to help him, her free hand found his, lacing their fingers together tightly as she held it in her lap, her other trying to lift away the worst of the sweat that was beginning to pour off his face with the flannel as she breathed, 

 

“I’m still here. I’m right next to you, you’re safe…”

 

The water didn’t stay down. She was quick enough to grab a mixing bowl before he brought it up again, heart hurting as he let out pained whimpers between retches. It felt like forever to her before he finally settled back down, seeming to almost have fallen asleep, curled up on his side and shivering on the very edge of the bed. Calliope had moved as quickly as she could, cleaning up and then dashing to her bathroom to raid the medicine cabinet, biting back a victorious hiss when she laid her hand on a packet of Pedialyte. Thank God for mom teaching her good precautionary shopping habits… 

 

As the sun started to rise through the apartment windows she knelt beside the bed, plastic straw stood in the glass of bright orange liquid, her fingers tucking Spencer’s hair around his ear and touching his cheek gently to draw him into consciousness. He’d looked through her more than at her, but she managed to get a little of the vital fluid into him, beginning to understand what the biggest battle was going to be here. He had fallen asleep again after that, if you could call it that, twitching and mumbling, curled up in on himself, hovering somewhere only just below waking. 

 

She dropped the roller blinds over her apartment window as morning broke, plunging them into darkness, a protective space for him that blot out the rest of the world. She only switched on the string of fairy lights woven around her bedstead to give her something to see by, their low glow casting deep shadows across Spencer’s face as he shuddered beneath them, fist balled tight in the sheets. 

 

As the morning wore on he began dreaming, or seeing things, or maybe both. She’d posted herself on the floor beneath where he lay, listening to his breathing with a hyper-vigilance that had all her hairs standing on end at the slightest change. At the first distressed noise she’d all but leapt out of her skin, shuffling to kneel and peer over the edge of the bed at him, chest tight.

 

“Spencer..?”

 

He hadn’t roused to her voice. His face was half buried in the pillow, but what she could see was contorted with pain, and she jumped when he moaned out, words not understandable, but the rawness of the sound enough to have her moving. She climbed up onto the bed, curling up to him from behind in an attempt to envelop him with her slight frame and hold him close as he shook, arm looped over his chest, chin tucked into his shoulder, whispering to him to reassure him she was there. 

 

He only woke when the nausea peaked again, mumbling about the bathroom and lurching from her embrace. She’d darted after him but the door had closed in her face and she heard sobbing this time, the agonised sounds he was making as his body was still trying to expel things that weren’t there leaving her fighting back frightened tears on the other side. After the silence had fallen she’d opened the door to find him curled up in a fetal position on the floor and dropped beside him, gathering him up to cradle him against her chest, his head tucked in beneath hers, face buried in the soft spot between her throat and shoulder, hands clinging to her upper arm hard enough it might leave bruises. Keen utterances of pain were leaving him, slicing through her. His shirt and hair were soaked through with sweat, body pulsing with fever. 

 

In the end she reached over to tug the shower door open and helped him crawl into it, following and throwing it on as cold as she dared. She wrapped him back up to hold him protectively as they both shivered under the cool torrent, her lips turning blue as she prayed his temperature would come down just a little. She didn’t bring him out until he’d calmed some and her own skin was burning with needles from the cold. She wrapped him in a towel, both of them leaving wet footprints across the polished floor of her apartment when she led him back, his eyes totally vacant as she’d sat him at the foot of the bed and dug through his bag, pulling out what must be sleep clothes; a tee and sweats. His first sign of sentience was when she’d gone to start unbuttoning his sodden shirt. He’d caught her fingers, shaking his head and murmuring hoarsely,

 

“I can do it…”

 

“Modesty? Now?” She would have laughed if the situation wasn’t so completely awful. 

 

It took him twenty minutes to change, the entire time her back turned as if they were in grade school, arms folded over her chest to hug herself, the closest thing to comfort she could get. He was collapsed back into the bed when she turned back around, laying on his back with his hands twisted in the covers, visibly writhing. She quickly tore off her own wet clothes and pulled on a dry tank and underwear, having no interest in modesty of her own and well aware he could barely open his eyes. Tossing the damp things into the bathroom sink to deal with later, she went back to her vigil knelt on the floor, not wanting to hold him and spike his fever again from her bodyheat. 

 

The cycle of trying to get some sort of fluid back into him and the vomiting that followed continued, feeling like two steps back to every one forwards. Glasses began to collect on her bedside cabinet alongside the Pedialyte; cold chamomile tea, water, ginger ale, anything to try and get him to drink and keep it in. In the end she had some moderate success with crushed icecubes, a dual pronged attack against his raging temperature and the dehydration. He’d taken some from a cup and she rubbed another over his forehead, eliciting a low groan that might have been gratitude from the base of his throat. 

 

At some point while he slept she managed to eat a protein bar and throw back a triple spoon cup of instant coffee, not wanting to switch on the percolator and have the smell set him off. She’d lost all track of time in the darkened apartment, but checking her phone told her it was almost eight in the evening. Jesus… An entire day… 

 

She worked around him to change what bedsheets she could, the ones she stripped dampened with sweat, the benefits of the shower from before long worn out. He’d curled around a pillow when she replaced it in a clean slip, gripping it into his chest and burying his face in it, the cotton muffling the low noises of pain that fell out of him.  When it was dark she lifted the blinds and opened the top windows wide as they would go, wrapping herself up in her bathrobe as the air cooled in the apartment. Sitting on the bed beside him, she drew his head into her lap, running her fingers through his hair to get it off his hot face. Her other hand slipped to his throat, fingers on his pulsepoint, counting. The low nineties. 

 

“Spencer…  _ Please _ … You need a doctor…”

 

His eyes opened, pupils so large that the colour of his iris had all but vanished. She wasn’t sure he was actually looking at her at all, but he must have been, because he answered her;

 

“I- I can’t… Please.. Trust...”

 

“Okay. Okay. I swear to God though, if you die-”

 

His hand hand gripped her wrist, tucking in to hold her arm across his chest tight. If she didn’t know better she might have thought the grip was to comfort her rather than himself… 

 

She slept a little while there with him, snatching the rest a few minutes at the time, leaned back against the pillows. Each time he shuddered she woke again, fingers perpetually going back to his neck just to be sure. Every so often he would yell out, not much more than noises, though a couple of times it was her name. His back arched, pain or fear or both bodily lifting him from the bed, and when that happened she bowed her head low, brushing trembly butterfly kisses to his forehead, no idea if the contact would break through whatever he was experiencing. 

 

It wasn’t until three am she realised the vomiting had stopped. Everything else felt worse but the vomiting had stopped. That was the first time she began to hope this might not be killing him… 

 

As the sky began to lighten on the second day she had been dozing fitfully when she felt him move, waking to find him trying to get himself out of the bed. His hair and the back of his shirt were literally drenched, and she’d only just got to him in time before he toppled over, arms looped around his shoulders to keep him upright as she whispered,

 

“What do you need?”

 

“Hot…” 

 

Understanding, she’d gotten him back to the shower and he sat balled up on the cubicle floor,  knees drawn up, face buried in his hands, Calliope kneeling on the other side of the glass to watch him like a hawk. She only shut the water off when she decided the way he was shivering was becoming too violent, sitting to peer in at him through the open door, her head resting on the frame, waiting for him to be ready to move out. 

 

“Are you still with me..?” 

 

Bloodshot eyes had opened to actually look at her this time, peering over his fingers as his head twitched in an almost imperceptible nod. 

 

She stripped the bed a second time, leaving him sat safely in the bathroom while she worked, tossing sheets into the washer, fast running out of linens. This time when she made up the bed she laid a couple of towels down too and brought him back to lay down in his still damp clothes, reasoning it might help battle the fever. He’d curled up in on himself almost immediately, but he was mostly conscious as she went to her knees on the floor, gently coaxing him to drink from a fresh glass of Pedialyte. It all disappeared this time, and she allowed herself a slither more hope. Was he coming back to her?

 

Blinds went back down to blot out the daylight, closing them in, keeping him safe. She took the world’s quickest shower, Spencer sleeping as she changed into clean shorts and a tee, moved the laundry from the washer to the dryer, drank more crappy coffee and ate a peanut butter sandwich. When he screamed she was back at his side in a lightning motion, gathering him up to lay with his head on her chest, his fingers clinging to a fistful of the front of her shirt as she held him, her arms wrapped around him while he cried softly, mumbling apologies for something she couldn’t understand. 

 

He fell back to sleep like that, draped onto her, her cheek resting on his crown as she rocked him gently long after he’d passed out, singing to him very quietly under her breath, some old Tim Buckley song her father used to play…

 

“Sail to me, sail to me, let me enfold you...Here I am, here I am, waiting to hold you…”

 

* * *

 

 

She woke to find herself alone again. It had taken a moment for it to hit her. Eyes opened to find herself staring at an empty pillow. As soon as that struck her as being wrong she was up, her first move towards the bathroom. Door open. Light on. Empty. 

 

“Spencer?!”

 

She span on her heel, as if somehow she’d just missed him in the open plan apartment, checking the kitchenette in case he was crouched behind the counter. No. The beanbags were vacant. His jacket was still over the chair. Bag still where she’d left it, tucked under the foot of the bed. But he was gone. He was gone, and-

 

Her front door door was open. 

 

She snatched up her phone, dialling his number. His jacket buzzed. He’d left his phone there. 

 

She shoved on her boots and left her door on the latch, running down the stairs of her apartment building still in her pyjama shorts and shirt, the freezing night air hitting her in a smack as she burst out onto the sidewalk. It was still dark. Another glance at her phone situated her. 4:17 am. Where the Hell could he have gone?!

 

There were a few pedestrians. The city that never sleeps. She ran to the nearest one, a man in a sharp business suit, already on his commute, frantically describing Spencer to him and asking if he’d seen him. He’d shaken his head and brushed her off, continuing on his way. She ran to the top of her block, then back down again to the other end, as if somehow she might spot him, her heart smashing against her ribcage hummingbird fast, mind already leaping ahead to where he might be. Where did the dealers gather in this neighbourhood..?

 

Sprinting back to her building, she ran up the stairs to her apartment, throwing the door open. Empty. Only her terrified breathing. She went to his bag first, then when she couldn’t find what she was looking for, his jacket pockets. His wallet was still in there, though, a couple of twenty dollar bills and credit cards left behind… 

 

She went through her purse next, but it was the same. Everything was as it should be. If he was looking to score, surely he would have emptied them out..?

 

Pacing in a tight circle, hand pulling her hair at the scalp, she stared down at her phone gripped in trembling fingers. She was going to have to call the police. She was going to have to break his trust and involve outsiders, the one thing he had pleaded with her not to-

 

He had been hot…

 

Out of her door again, she threw herself up the stairs this time, able to see before she reached the roof the exit was propped open with the lawn chair, exactly the same as she would do-

 

Her legs almost gave out beneath her when she saw him, sat in her favourite spot, leaning with his arms draped over the safety railing to gaze out at the city. He looked back at her over his shoulder as he heard the door swing open, his face bleached grey still, but the focus there in his eyes. Calliope had to take a moment not to just run over to him, wary of doing anything too sudden when he was right on the edge of the world. She swallowed, the warning burn of tears creeping up on her. 

 

_ For the love of God, do not cry in front of him… _

 

“What are you doing up here..?” she managed breathlessly. He looked up at her meekly, teeth grazing his lower lip, before he’d replied in a hoarse little voice;

 

“I just wanted to feel the air…”

 

Calliope dropped onto the ledger beside him, Spencer watching her as she did, more lucid than he’d been since he arrived. She peered up at him, her heart still fluttering from adrenaline, and he met her gaze, finally holding it. 

 

“I was worried…”

 

“You were sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you again…” 

 

The back of her fingers went to his forehead, feeling his skin. Less clammy. Cool.

 

“Your fever’s broken…”

 

He caught her hand, drawing it away from his face,  and the way he looked at her caught her breath in her throat as he held her fingers tightly. It was as though he could see the star stuff he’d once told her she was made of...

 

“Do you want to sit here a little while longer?”

 

A silent nod. 

 

They stayed up there while the sun rose, Spencer squinting into the light but not shying away from it this morning. Eventually Calliope laid her head on his shoulder, fingers moving in his to intertwine with them and press their palms together, a soft whisper leaving her;

 

“Are you with me?”

 

"I'm here..."

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Calliope was referencing was Song to the Siren by Tim Buckley. I actually wrote the chapter listening to Wolf Alice's cover on loop, it's a very beautiful rendition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5nbn4-iwPY
> 
> If you liked this one, I would really appreciate feedback, it was a GRIND to write!


	23. The Cathedral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Update time, finally! I have had so little time this week, it's been naff. I've been trying to pick away at this afor days, but had no space to do so. 
> 
> Fair warning, it's a biggy. I was going to split it into two chapters originally, but it didn't work. So it's a long one. I hope it's okay. I worked on it in such a fragmented way, I have a feeling it's sorta subpar... 
> 
> As usual, please kudos/comment if you enjoy.

Back in her apartment and in daylight Calliope settled Spencer among her cushions and rolled up the blind for him, leaving him sat in the breeze that was coming through the open window. He watched her in silence as she changed the bed sheets over yet again, eyes following her around the apartment. Ever practical…

 

Bed made, she brought him a glass of water, ice cubes clinking in it softly, kneeling down to offer it to him as she said in quiet tones,

 

“All of it.”

 

Aching fingers had struggled to take the glass until he held it in both hands. He sank half the contents before he came up for breath, Calliope’s perpetually worried eyes fixed on him.

 

“How are you feeling?”

 

“I uh, I know where I am now… So there’s that…” he replied, voice cracking in his sore throat.

 

“You didn’t know where you were..?”

 

He looked over with a thin, humourless smile and shrugged slightly. She couldn’t hide the horror in her eyes, however hard she was trying to keep her face impassive. Her fingers touched his on the glass, nudging gently as she said again,

 

“All of it…”

 

When the water was gone she refilled it and came back to sit on the floor cross legged after she’d handed it off to him, sweeping a hand through her hair to push it away from her face. She was staring at him, Spencer’s skin prickling under her gaze.

 

“Is it over..?”

 

Hazel gaze flickered over to her, eyes still sensitive to the light, her fairness too bright for a moment in the morning sun coming through the window. He blinked, giving his vision a second to adjust. When he refocused he had enough clarity to realise that she looked as worn as he felt. What had he put her through?

 

“I thinks so...” he mumbled. She was still staring. He swallowed, the simple reflex something of a struggle, his throat was so raw. Sipped some water. Coughed slightly, eyes following the cubes floating in the glass.

 

“Typically, uh- typically opiates have a remarkably short metabolic life. Compounds begin breaking down in as little as four hours, so from a detoxification point of view, all but base traces should be excreted within a seventy two hour-”

 

“Spencer…”

 

The cut off was gentle, but enough to stop him dead. He really didn’t want to look at her again now he was coming to his senses.

 

“I don’t necessarily feel awesome… But yes, the acute phase, I believe, is over. Mostly, I, uh- I just feel- well, I think ashamed is probably the most apt word for it…” Teeth grazed over the inside of his cheek as he heard Calliope breathe,

 

“I can’t fix that for you. You’re going to have to figure that part out for yourself.”

 

“I know… I’m not sure where to start, but I suppose one problem at a time…”

 

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think you need to be ashamed. I don’t know the full ins and outs of how this happened, but you’re here, dealing with it, because you chose to. You took that step for yourself. I think that's something to be proud of, not ashamed. I don't know if that’s worth anything, just my opinion...”

 

He was able to manage a glance over at her, her tired face settled into a weak sort of smile as his eyes met hers.

 

“I value your opinion...” he murmured. She nodded slowly, but then it was her turn to look away, gaze dropped in her lap, fingers tracing a knot in the laminate floor beneath her.

 

“There is, uh, there is one thing I need to say to you, then, about all this… If I don’t then it’s going to eat away at me, and I’ve always figured we were honest with each other, so, I- I really need to say it and for you to understand it’s not a judgement, and I’m not mad or anything. I just want to be clear, for me and I think for you…”

 

Spencer felt his stomach drop away unpleasantly, his still slightly erratic heart fluttering in his chest. How much damage had he done to their friendship in the last few days?

 

“Okay…” he breathed, entirely unsure he wanted to hear whatever she was about to say.

 

Permission granted, she looked up at him, fingers pausing in their path around the dark swirl in the wood, her clear eyes filled with an intent pleading as she said very softly,

 

“I can’t watch you go through this twice…”

 

His stomach was through the floor and free falling, past concrete and basement and into the earth. He could hear his own heart beating in the silence that followed those few words. Corners of his eyes prickling, he nodded slowly, then managed to murmur,

 

“Never again. I promise…”

 

“Okay. I trust you,” Calliope replied, barely audible, eyes back on the pattern of her pyjama shorts, and for a flash Spencer wished he was the sort of person who would pull her in for a hug. She looked as though she needed it as much as he did. All he could do though was peer back down into the glass he was holding, the ice mostly melted, everything aching still, centred in his sternum. She was never going to see him the same way…

 

It took a moment to register the light fingers relieving him of the water, Calliope's warm arms around his shoulders before he had a chance to look at her face. He managed to wind his own around her little frame in return, feeling a shiver go through her, from tiredness or something else maybe, her whisper close to his ear;

 

“You’re doing great...”

 

He might have laughed at that, if he’d had the energy. His chin rest on her shoulder, eyes closed as he held onto her despite how much his body was protesting with pain at the effort, muttering in reply,

 

“This is the easy part…”

 

He felt her grip tighten, a low murmur of discomfort leaving him, instantly and bitterly regretting the sound when she let go as if she’d been burned a second later, eyes wide as she sat back on her heels.

 

“Oh God, I’m sorry, I didn’t think-”

 

“It’s okay. Everything is just sort of- I might be a little tender. Sorry.”

 

Pale blonde head tilt, then shook as she peered at him.

 

“You should be resting. Come on. Back to bed.”

 

He didn’t put up any protest when she stood and took both his hands, his joints screaming when he stood. It took a moment to centre himself, the world shifting unpleasantly on its axis as he straightened up, the simple act of standing almost enough to have him pitching over. Calliope waited until he looked less green before she drew him across the loft and helped him sink down onto the mattress, a low exhale of relief leaving him as the pressure was taken off his limbs, the fire out in his muscles but the embers going to remain some time yet. Eyes closed, he felt her lay the coverlet over him, then heard her set his glass on the bedside cabinet somewhere nearby.

 

“I can find a hotel later,” he mumbled, beginning to become conscious of the way she was doting over him now he was sobering up.

 

“The Hell you will,” he heard her reply, voice quiet but tone absolute. He felt the bed shift slightly, mattress dipping under a new weight, opening his eyes to find her opposite him, her arm tucked under her head to prop herself up a little as she lay on her side, blue eyes deeply serious in her weary face, all of six inches between them.

 

“You came here for a reason. You can stay here until you’re ready, whenever that is…”

 

“I didn’t intend to burden you.” There was that shame again, just dying to tip over completely and wash through him in it’s cold wave.

 

“You’re not. Spencer, I- you have no idea how relieved I was to find you at the door… I knew something was wrong. I’m glad you’re here. I am. I promise you. You’re not a burden…”

 

She was trying to smile for him, but there was something so wounded about it. They gazed at one another a long moment, the silence in the air thick, a sort of static humming almost.

 

In a moment of unprecedented boldness, Spencer reached across the space between them and took her hand, fingers encircling hers and holding on tight.

 

Some of the hurt melted out the smile.

 

“Rest…”

 

“Stay..?”

 

She nodded and that was enough.

 

* * *

 

 

He slipped in and out of consciousness after that, any sense of time entirely lost to him while the last dregs of his personal poison left his system. Calliope was beside him for a while, and when he opened his eyes a couple of times he saw her sleeping. She only left him when her phone rang, stealing away to the bathroom to try and avoid waking him, though he could hear her through the door;

 

“I'm not sure, KJ, it could be a few days yet. I think I'm coming down with the flu, maybe. You sure you don't mind the extra shifts? No, I'm fine, I just need a break…”

 

The next time he woke he found the water on the bedside cabinet had been replaced with an apple juice and a plate with half a dozen saltines. Calliope was back in the bed, sat reclined against her pillows, a book rest on her thighs with her knees propped up, reading silently. His still sluggish brain decided there was something lovely about that image of her.

 

He'd drank the juice, but left the crackers, stomach still too delicate to contemplate eating anything. When he settled back down Calliope had silently reached over with her nearest hand, offering it to him without looking up from her page, and he'd wound his fingers through hers, glad of the anchor, head still spinning even rest on the pillow.

 

It was dark the time after that, his own cries piercing through the veil of a dream, shaking him loose from the almost hallucinatory reel of Raphael stealing his appearance and wearing his face as he gutted the hysterically pleading woman he'd seen on Tobias’ video feed weeks earlier. The woman he'd condemned…

 

Calliope was leaned over him as he fought for breath, the pain behind his eyes intensified once more as he dissolved into quiet tears. He could feel her fingers smoothing his hair away from his forehead, her voice whispering soft reassurances to him, telling him he was safe, not understanding-

 

Eventually he stilled, too worn out for the intensity of the emotion to maintain its momentum. Calliope had slipped under the covers with him, the calm silence around her as she rest a hand on his shoulder going some way to help the stark fear peter out and retreat back to the low, constant anxiety hum instead. Not better, just relentless in a more copeable way.

 

He couldn't get back to sleep after that, too afraid of what he'd see if he shut his eyes, his escape mechanism gone now. What was he going to do, how- How was he ever going to function, how was he ever going to be able to go back- This was a mistake, he couldn't do this, he wasn't ready-

 

His breathing was quickening, blood rushing in his ears as he stared up at the white ceiling of the apartment, an iron band constricting around his ribcage-

 

“They do go away, you know…”

 

Calliope's voice made him jump in his hyper alert state, the low murmur seeming sonorous after all the quiet. He glanced over at her, adrenaline pulsing through him, eyes questioning. She nodded, a twitch of her head on the pillow.

 

“When..?”

 

“I'm not sure. It sort of creeps up on you, almost. It starts with one unbroken night. And that's such a novelty, it feels huge… But eventually it gets to the point where you don't even realise. You've suddenly gone a week, then two, then a couple of months, and you don't even think about it anymore… it becomes the norm, so you just sort of stop noticing. It's like a candle burning out, you don't necessarily register. It just stops, quietly…”

 

Spencer’s eyes went back to the ceiling, fixed on a refracted rainbow of light bouncing from somewhere outside the window, Calliope continuing in a hush beside him;

 

“I would have done anything to stop them, at first. But whatever I did, it was only a bandaid. Nothing made it go away. It had to play out, in it’s own time…”

 

“Cognitive processing…” he murmured, pressing both hands over his face and inhaling into his palms as he tried to hold himself together.

 

“Let it happen, and it will end. You know that already, and if that’s not enough, have my promise on top…”

 

She’d made tea after that, sitting with him while he sipped the pale yellow tonic, her laptop set up on the floor and soft keys of Debussy rising from it, helping to settle the air in the apartment. A packet of ginger cookies was left conspicuously on the coverlet, Calliope mimicking the stunt that’d been pulled on her by Morgan back at the hospital in Atlanta and helping herself to them until Spencer had tentatively asked if he could have one. After three some colour had come back into his face and by the time they reached the end of the pack between them he looked positively sated, the first rise in his blood sugar for days helping some way to push back the adrenaline dump from his nightmares.

 

When they eventually settled once more, Callie left the music running quietly and the string lights over the bed on, their warm glow not lost on him. Twenty five years old and he was grateful for a night light…

 

“Calliope..?”

 

“Mm?”

 

“What day is it..?”

 

She’d smiled at him from her pillow, pinpricks of gold in her eyes from the lights above them.

 

“Almost Tuesday. Go to sleep. I’m right here.”

 

He never did quite figure out after, if he’d dreamed curling up with her, the comforting weight of her arm draped over his chest almost certainly an illusion…

 

* * *

 

 

His fourth day in New York the shift in what he was feeling was real. The smell of something warm and sweet had woken him, and when he stirred in the bed his body didn’t put up nearly the fight it had the day before. Everything was on a level plane as he sat up, one hand rubbing his face, his eyes landing on Calliope in her kitchenette as the fog lifted; dressed properly in jeans and an oversized grey knit sweater, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, the front of her hair twisted away from her face in pinned back braids, she looked noticeably put together and very much not about to spend another day in limbo…

 

“Are you making pancakes..?” he asked groggily and she looked up at him with an almost hesitant smile and a nod, dropping a spoonful of batter into the pan with a sizzle as she replied,

 

“It’s eight o’clock. It’s Tuesday. I just thought maybe it uh… it might be time to do something normal, like breakfast ..?”

 

Spencer nodded slowly, more to himself than her, realising the point she was making even if she was doing it in the most roundabout way possible; he had to start trying to function again…

 

“They smell good,” he said eventually and this earned him another smile that was bordering on radiant.

 

He sat on one of the high stools pulled up to the counter as she cooked, watching her with his hands roped together in his lap, honestly unable to remember the last time someone had made him pancakes outside of a diner. When she leaned over to set his plate on the counter in front of him, it came with a bottle of maple syrup and a coffee as well, his eyebrows raised until she said,

 

“It’s decaf. I figured you could probably do without stimulants right now…”

 

“I thought we were friends,” he replied with the vaguest hint of a smile, Calliope blinking before she realised he’d made a joke. She actually laughed, the sound making his own smile grow.

 

He all but demolished the pancakes, his appetite suddenly alive in a way it hadn’t been for weeks, Calliope watching while she stood opposite him and ate her own, trying not to look too pleased. The coffee was noticeably different, but an extra spoon of sugar in it made it more palatable and he was grateful for the consideration that went into making it. By the time he was at the bottom of that as well he felt more compos mentis, the clarity he was gaining with each hour that went by illustrating that for all his justifications to himself that he was operating within normal parameters while under the influence, he really hadn't been...

 

“You’re looking better,” Calliope said gently when she cleared his plate and he nodded as she came back with a glass of orange juice, setting it down before him.

 

“I’m starting to feel better…”

 

This time when she brushed her fingers over the bruises on the inside of his arm he didn’t flinch.

 

“They’re beginning to fade,” she breathed as she traced the yellowing shadows.

 

“I think there’ll be some scars…”

 

“Probably. But scars aren’t the end of the world.”

 

His gaze flickered to the line of silver inside her wrist and he nodded. If anyone should know…

 

Her fingers were still on the inside of his arm, touch absolutely gentle.

 

“Tobias, he… he honestly thought he was doing me a kindness, when this started…”

 

He felt her eyes on his face, but he couldn’t look up, not yet. She’d done so much without question, she was owed some sort of an explanation…

 

“He was sick. Do you know what dissociative identity disorder is?”

 

“No…”

 

“It’s when a person’s psyche literally fractures into different, distinct personalities. Entirely separate minds within one body, usually after severe trauma, such as intense abuse. The alters are typically protectors of the original individual, and harmless, but in rare cases it can manifest into extreme aggression... Tobias suffered a great deal at the hands of his father, and that happened to him in the end…”

 

Calliope had come around the counter by this point and was stood at his hip, hand on his forearm, listening in silence still, absolutely focused. Spencer swallowed before he continued, trying to remember he was talking to her and not another profiler.

 

“The person that hurt me, that took me, that wasn’t Tobias. It was the other personalities. Tobias used dilaudid to try and escape his abuse, and he did the same to me when he regained what little control he could, because he was too afraid to help me any other way. He didn’t mean any harm. It wasn’t his fault… He was trying to make things bearable...”

 

“And then so were you…” Calliope whispered.

 

“I just wanted it to stop…”

 

“I know.”

 

Warmth spread through his cheek, a soft palm rest on it, coaxing him to lift his head. His gaze landed on her porcelain face, blue eyes shining, mirroring his.

 

“This, though, this is how it stops, Spencer… Reaching out, instead of turning inwards. This is how it stops...”

 

* * *

 

 

He spent a long time in the shower, the hot water helping to peel back the fog a little more and dull the aching further, until by the time he got out he sort of felt like he was recovering from a cold rather than a rapid detox. At Calliope's bathroom mirror he studied his reflection a while, beginning to recognise the person looking back at him. Thinner, older, but his face.

 

He dressed in a polo and khaki slacks, fingers training down his damp hair as best as he could, then pulled on a cardigan, ever conscious of needing to cover up his arms. Here he wasn't being judged for them, but it still felt wrong having them on display, a constant reminder of his failings.

 

When he emerged Callie was sat at her studio work table, feet swaying slightly above the ground as she idly sketched in a large book of cream coloured paper, soft hands in prayer position blossoming into being under her pencil. She looked up as he closed the bathroom door, the smile she gave him making the back of his neck warm.

 

“There you are,” she breathed and Spencer knew she didn't just mean his reappearance after the shower.

 

He sat with her a while, watching her work. At one point she reached to take his hand and draw it closer across the table, his fingers resting on hers joining the sketches on the page.

 

“I have to run a couple of errands this morning. I should only be an hour, maybe two. Think you'll be okay?”

 

She spoke without looking up from the book, pencil nib still moving. He watched her, studying the profile of her face. She was pushing him again, gently, but pushing.

 

“I'll be fine…”

 

While she was gone he tried to read, helping himself to her copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray from the small pile of books she'd left him with for company, an interesting choice for her collection he thought, given she was a portrait artist. He found that the book was more unsettling than he remembered though, and in the end set it aside, pulling his notepad and pens from the duffel he'd arrived with to write to his mother instead, realising it had been days. Unsure what to tell her, given his reason for being in New York, he wrote about the view of the city from Calliope's window, that he was taking the vacation she kept telling him to, and that very soon he'd come to Nevada, all too aware as he put pen to paper he'd not done so enough prior to almost losing his life and everything else.

 

When Calliope came back she brought matzo ball soup and they ate together on beanbags as she explained she'd had to see a client and cash a couple of cheques, banal sort of stuff. Spencer nodded as he listened, well aware she'd left him because at some point it was going to be permanent and that would be the normal state of things. She was just trying to ease him into it. No more crutches…

 

“I'm not missing it,” he mumbled as he pushed a matzo bowl around with his spoon.

 

“See? Not an addict,” she replied with a quiet smile.

 

They spent the afternoon in relative silence, Calliope sketching on one beanbag, Spencer reading a copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel on another, this selection less jarring, the sort of domesticity about the whole thing soothing to still frayed nerves. There was a sanctuary here. He'd have to leave it soon, but for now he was safe to just rest, without the pressures that had contributed to his habit hanging over him, the constantly improving sobriety a gentler coming to in this quiet place.

 

Early evening, though, Calliope had looked up from her page, Spencer experiencing his first jolting burst of anxiety for hours when she suggested softly,

 

“How would you feel about going out somewhere?”

 

“Out?” he echoed, thumb between pages to mark his spot, the book being consumed with less voracity than usual given his still fragile health.

 

“Mmhm. There's this place, it's- its nice. Quiet. I just think maybe it would be good for you… It's been four days…”

 

She really was determined to start pulling him out of his pit…

 

She booked a cab, Spencer less than sure as he slid his jacket over still aching shoulders. He understood though, it might not just be him the excursion was for. She'd been pinned down in the apartment for days as well, and whatever he experienced, he only recalled the worst bits and pieces. She was carrying it all.

 

In the back of the car she was still silent, giving nothing away as to where they were going. Spencer stared out of the window, the neon lights and countless pedestrians too much for his eyes to keep up with. It all seemed so congested after the pocket of the world he’d been sequestered away in.  

 

When they pulled up outside of an enormous cathedral, ornate spires illuminated by silvery uplifted spots, he felt his brows raise. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it hadn’t been this.

 

“St Patrick's,” Calliope explained as he got out onto the pavement with her, feeling her hand grasp his.

 

“I didn’t know you were Catholic.”

 

“I’m not. Come on, you’ll see…”

 

She led him inside through heavy wooden doors, onto marble floor, a reverent hush enveloping them as the city was shut out. The vaulted ceilings of the cathedral towered above, bathed in gold light, the heady smells of mass upon mass of incense perfuming the air. There were a few parishioners dotted about, most in pews, heads bent in prayer.

 

“Calliope..?” he whispered, confusion loaded in the single word.

 

“This way,” she uttered in reply, leading him deeper into the cavernous building and to one of the wooden benches off a side alcove, partly shadowed, but the altar clothed in it’s cream silk straight ahead. He sat obediently beside her, trying to figure out if this was some sort of intervention. Peering down at her, he saw her shaking off her coat, settling in, finally looking up at him.

 

“It’s very beautiful, but- what are we doing here?” he whispered, even his hushed tones feeling impossibly loud in the sacred space.

 

“It’s the acoustics,” Calliope murmured, and now she was smiling, as if she knew some great secret she was letting him in on. “They come every week, to practice. All they ask if you sit in is a donation towards the upkeep of the cathedral…” She shifted, and nodded towards the altar. Spencer looked up, following her eyeline, seeing a small group of people beginning to congregate up there, maybe fifteen altogether, men and women. They shuffled about until most of them settled into a line, black folders in their hands. One woman broke away from the pack to stand before them, a hand lifted and poised elegantly, Spencer beginning to understand what was happening…

 

As the first chord lifted into the perfumed air, a crystalline cluster of voices declaring ‘Ave Maria’ with absolute clarity that raised right to the highest arches of the basilica, goosebumps ran over his skin and he looked down at Calliope with large eyes. She was looking back at him, smile almost embarrassed under his gaze, as if for a moment she thought she might have misjudged her decision to bring him there.

 

“You’ve been surrounded by so much ugliness lately… I just thought you might benefit from something beautiful…”

 

The voices were spiralling, liquid silver of sopranos in the rafters, the sound resonating through him in a way that almost stopped him breathing for a moment.

 

“Calliope, I- Thank you…”

 

It wasn’t just for where she’d brought him, and they both knew it.

 

For a while he just listened. She was right. The acoustics of the building meant the acapella tones of the choir swelled in the air with a heart wrenching clarity, each and every voice audible but lending to the overall richness of sound, a perfect blend of close harmonies that made his spine tingle.

 

Gradually though, his attention began to shift, gaze drifting to the woman at his side. Calliope was listening with her eyes closed, a quiet smile at the corner of her mouth, enrapt.

 

Calliope, who just knew how to make things better, even if she couldn’t fix them.

 

He saw her breath catch as the voices crescendoed, physically moved, and he smiled a little.

 

Maybe he’d be dead, if he hadn’t of come here. Maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he would have checked himself into a facility. Maybe he would have kept on going until a levy broke. Maybe others would have intervened. A hundred different maybes.

 

But here had been where she was, and really, there had never been an alternative... He’d lost a piece of himself, that first time in this city, and it’d stayed, waiting for him to come back.

 

Did she even know she had it in her keeping..?

 

Her eyes opened when he touched her cheek, looking up at him in startled silence for a moment, before she softened into a smile as she gazed up at him, Spencer’s heart a timpani in his chest. Warm fingers mirrored his, caressing the shadow of his cheekbone before finally coming to rest on his jawline, keeping him close. Eyes closed, his forehead touched hers, still with her a while, voices rolling over them in a wave of light.

 

The kiss was chaste, barely a touch, only a moment. But right.

 

She knew.


	24. The Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello! Update time from your perpetually sleep deprived writer! Thank you all so much for the amazingly positive response from my last chapter, I was blown away! I hope you like this one :) Warning: fluff/mush alert hehe. As always, comments/kudos are HUGELY appreciated. I'm gonna try and get some sleep now, it's 4.30 in the morning here!

_**"I was shattered into tiny bits. She came. Put each of the pieces back together, held them gently; not so loose that I may fall again, not so hard that I was crushed. Just perfect. She fused them together with gold, all the golden gossamer she had stored in her heart."  - Unknown.** _

 

* * *

 

 

The silence in the taxi back to her apartment was different to the one that had surrounded them on the way to the cathedral. Not knowing what to do with his hands, Spencer sat with them tucked under his thighs, staring out of the window in a determined sort of way. If he looked at Calliope then they might have to acknowledge what had happened. That could change things, irreversibly. It was one of those defining moments, that shifted the course of a relationship forever, and he simply could not lose whatever they had…

 

He risked stealing a glance from beneath his hair over at the blonde as the car slowed at a crosswalk. She was gazing out at the city too, her body language only mildly less tense than his. One hand moved to tuck her hair behind her ear, revealing more of her face to him. She looked- He couldn’t tell what she looked like. He couldn’t get a read. 

 

She must have felt his eyes on her, because her head turned and she caught him staring. There was a faint attempt at a smile as their eyes met, and then she looked out of her window again, Spencer all too keenly aware of the heat that was spreading through his face. Really, what was the use of a physiological evolutionary hangover like blushing anyway?

 

In her building he lingered back a couple of feet while she unlocked the door. She stepped in first, then after a few moments looked out again, finding him still stood with his hands in his pockets in the hall.

 

“Are you coming?” she asked softly, brows lifted a little as she peered out at him. 

 

“Sorry. I am. Yes,” he replied. She gave him a tentative sort of smile then ducked back inside, and he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, steeling himself. This was ridiculous. She was still her, same as she'd always been... 

 

Inside she was hanging her coat before she moved to the kitchen, filling the tea kettle and setting it on the burner. Spencer closed the door quietly as he could behind himself, unsure where he fit in room in that moment. He left his jacket over the back of the chair where it'd rested previously, then turned to find her sat on one of the high stools at the counter, hands folded in her lap, watching him.

 

“Are we okay..?”. 

 

“Are we..?” Spencer echoed, the sensation of not having the answer for something entirely alien to him. He had no idea what to do in this situation. She was starting to look worried now, her hand going to brush through her hair and tuck it around the shell of her ear. A nervous tick, he was beginning to realise. 

 

“It’s been a weird few days, hasn’t it?” she murmured. Her eyes fell to the toes of her boots, fingers still rest in her waves at the nape of her neck. 

 

The soft burble of the water rolling in the kettle was the only sound in the apartment for a while. 

 

“Kissing has been clinically proven to increase the human lifespan by anywhere up to five years, due to the cocktail of beneficial hormones it produces.”

 

Clear blue eyes lifted to peer up at him, something in them amused at the random blurt of information, even through the atmosphere that had blanketed them. Spencer met her gaze with what had to be the world’s most uneasy smile in return, ears and the back of his neck burning.   

 

“I- I’m not good at this sort of thing… People like me, we’re not- we don’t get kissed by people like you… That’s not how the world works...” His teeth bit down on his lower lip for a moment as he struggled to articulate himself, hating every word that came out of his mouth. 

 

“What do you mean..?”

 

“You- you paint self portraits…” Please, let her get it. He didn’t want to have to say it in black and white.

 

The penny hung in the air a few seconds, then finally dropped, Calliope's eyes widening.

 

“Is that what you really think?” she asked softly.

 

“I have almost an entire lifetime of empirical data to support the theory…” He tried to smile, to cut through some of the discomfort he was experiencing. The look on her face told him she wasn't buying it. 

 

“Would you come here, please?” She pat the stool beside hers, beckoning him to sit. It took him a moment before he gave in to the request, and when he sank down it was right on the edge of the seat, every muscle tense and beginning to ache again. Calliope twisted to face him, her hands gripping the underside of the cushion as she looked up at him. 

 

“Okay…” she breathed once she was settled, Spencer focusing his attention on his hands in his lap rather than look at her. “So, point one: I’m about ninety eight percent sure you started it, which sort of renders your theory void in and of itself..” 

 

She paused long enough for an involuntary flicker of an awkward smile to cross his face, thumb of one hand rubbing over the nail of the other. 

 

“Point two, I may or may not be a little freaked out myself right now, so don’t think you’re the only one wondering what just happened. And- and-” She held a hand up as he looked over at her, cutting him off from the inevitable apology that was on the tip of his tongue. “And point three; being you does not mean being unworthy, do you understand? Not of me or anyone else in this world...”

 

They stared at one another in the wake of those words, Calliope's own cheeks a pale shade of pink as she gazed up at him. Spencer took a full minute to collect himself, the knowledge that this moment was absolutely pivotal bearing down on him. 

 

“You're the person I talk to most in the world… We talk like- like normal people. That is invaluable to me, Calliope…”

 

There was a slow nod of blonde waves, an understanding acknowledgement of what he was trying to say. 

 

“We're still talking. Nothing has changed…” 

 

A beat. She took a breath, steadying herself. Calm. Collected. The antithesis of what he was experiencing. 

 

“Look, it's been a really rough few days. I'm not even sure we should be having this conversation right now. You're still not yourself. This can wait. We're okay, Spencer. We are. I promise…”

 

White fingers landed on his, squeezing his thumb with a light pressure. He looked over at her, managing a weak smile and trying not to think about the incident in the cathedral, about how the world had made a perfect sort of sense in that moment, and he had been sure he was exactly where he was meant to be and with who he was meant to be with, about how the very instant it was over and she'd turned all her attention back to the choir the panic had started-

 

The kettle whistle broke his stream of consciousness and she was gone, in the kitchen filling cups with tea, still intent on keeping him off his coffee habit as well as her own, gaze cast down and lashes shading her eyes as she concentrated on what she was doing. 

 

The amount of reasonableness she was displaying was almost maddening. It also cast further doubt on what had happened, the more distance that was being gained from the kiss, the more he was starting to suspect this was a very gentle rejection, except-

 

Her fingers were trembling when she shook the teabag strings. Any other eye likely would have missed it. But he was trained to see. 

 

Porcelain cheeks were still coloured by an increased blood flow, brushed the colour of cherry blossoms, only partly hidden by her hair as she kept her head low. 

 

_ “Being you does not mean being unworthy… Not of me…” _

 

Had she really-

 

“Spencer..?”

 

She was stood before him, holding a mug out with arched eyebrows, the sound of her saying his name bringing him out of his thoughts. He looked up, the stool bringing them almost eye level as she waited for him to take the cup. It was steady in her hand. 

 

He took the tea, wrapping both palms around it to rest it in his lap, eyes on the surface as she sat back down beside him, her own gaze cast towards the apartment window. It had begun to rain, drops thrumming a low rhythm on the glass as they slid down the pane in rivulets. As if the weather itself could sense the mood in the apartment.

 

If he was wrong, she would be gone. No more letters or phone calls, no more safe, soft moments with her head on his shoulder as if it belonged there… 

 

Turning through the hip, he set the cup down on the counter behind them, then reached out to take hers as well, clear blue eyes widened by surprise following him. 

 

“I would really rather have the conversation now... Please.” 

 

It was probably the closest he could get to some sweeping gesture. Calliope looked up at him, the colour in her face intensifying. 

 

“Okay,” she breathed and he saw her hands curl around themselves instinctively. Frowning, he hesitated a moment, but there was no going back now. Whatever he said or did, things just weren’t going to be the same after today, regardless, so-

 

“Calliope, I- I would never want to do anything that would mean you were no longer part of my life. I believe you give me more credit than I deserve, but I also believe that is just your nature. You see the beauty in the world, and the best in people, even when they have as many flaws as- well, as many as I do. I would take having you as a friend for the rest of my life, if that was all I was ever to be allowed. I would be more than content with that… Anything more than that, I- the truth is that I wouldn’t know where to begin with it, but I can tell you I would always do my best to be worthy of the faith that you have in me, and- And I don’t really know what else to say,  because I’m really not good at things like this at all, but I promise you I am myself and my head is clear and these are my own words, such as they are…”

 

He swallowed as he tailed off, feeling sort of nauseous as the gravity of what had just come out of his mouth settled over him. Calliope was staring at him, her pupils large, lips part a little.The silence seemed to go on for aeons, until-

 

“I think you’re better at this than you realise…”

 

She smiled, soft, almost coy, Spencer able to note though the haze of what was happening the rose in her cheeks as utterly lovely. 

 

This time when she kissed him it lingered. Still gentle, full of a wary sort of affection, testing waters that had been still a long time, but enough that his eyes had closed and his hand had instinctively gone to her cheek, thumb brushing her skin in a featherlight touch. 

 

When they settled to watch the rain amongst the cushions by the window her temple had come home to his shoulder and a warm hand took his, drawing his arm about her waist, the fit perfect. He still ached, but maybe the fire he’d walked through would be worth it. He was a long way from whole, yet, they both knew that, but as Calliope tilt her head to steal brushes of his lips while lightning forked across the sky, he believed maybe he could heal one day. A break in a bone became the strongest part, in the end....

 

* * *

 

The remaining days in New York were spent in a steady, noticeable shift back into the light. The first morning Spencer woke with Calliope still sleeping on his chest was the first day he woke without any pain. He’d ran cautious fingers through the tips of her hair until she’d woken, still unsure what contact was okay, and what wasn’t, but the dazed smile she’d given him when her eyes opened led him to decide that was probably fine. 

 

Little by little she coaxed him back into the world, in the only way she knew how. The Polaroids she would have sent him once to chronicle her own healing were replaced by slow, steady reminders that there were simple pleasures to be had. They went back to their coffee shop. They walked in Central Park, hand in hand. She took him to the New York Public Library, letting him get lost among the literal millions of books and the oddly Renaissance air of pastel painted ceilings and gilded columns. He watched her paint for the first time, smiling fondly as she wrapped herself up in her makeshift smock and lost herself in shades of amber and gold, her mind somewhere far away as she worked. There was something beautiful, he thought privately, about seeing her in her element like that.

 

Things weren’t always perfect. Sometimes his mood would snap in a way that was unfamiliar to her, overwhelmed by the crowds of the city or sudden flashes of moments in Atlanta or a nagging physical discomfort that his logical mind knew was driven by receptors in his brain still craving chemical soothing. The nightmares still came too, leaving him soaked with sweat and shaking down to his core. Calliope was unerringly patient though, combating the darker moments with gentle affection, kissing his brow when he apologised and curling up with him in the night, her warmth pressed against him when his arms encircled her soothing in way he’d never experienced before. 

 

Outside of the dreams, the nights were becoming his favourite time, getting into bed beside her incredibly intimate, even though nothing more than kisses passed between them. It was the closeness, the absolute trust that went with her sleeping in his embrace. She would drape her arm across his chest and tuck herself in flush to his side, their breathing falling into rhythm as if it was the way things should be. He began to wonder how he had ever slept without her. 

 

In the second week Gideon had broken the silence from Washington with a single text, asking if he was well. He’d replied that he was, but it had been a jolting reminder that this wasn’t really his life. There was no permanence here. He was expected to go back.  

 

Calliope seemed to sense it too. The Friday of the second week she was uncharacteristically quiet and there was no trip out of the apartment planned. She almost seemed to be actively avoiding him, rearranging her workspace while he pretended to read. It was raining again, the sound not enough to stop her silence bothering him. Eventually he had reached the end of his tether and abandoned the book to go over to her while she sorted through one of her folios of sketches, reaching around her to catch her hands, stopping her in her tracks. She turned in his hold and he released her to cup her cheeks instead, kissing her more deeply than he had ever done before, enough that he felt her fingers curl tight into the front of his shirt. When he broke away they were both breathless, eyes still closed as he touched his brow to hers and heard her whisper,

 

“I’m frightened for you…”

 

“You don’t need to be. I promise. I’m going to be okay,” he murmured in reply and for the first time he knew that he meant it.

 

His last evening there they spent in the Park, trying to walk off a shared anxious energy, and came across a busking flautist who they sat and listened to play Mozart’s concerto in G in its entirety. Spencer had been privy to several excellent concerts in his life, but nothing quite compared to sitting with Calliope’s hand in his, the first hints of spring warmth in the air, watching her smile as the musician played just for them. 

 

That night neither of them slept properly, the sword of Damocles that would be the morning hanging over them. Gazing at one another in the glow of the string of lights above the bed, Spencer found it impossible to envision what life would be like the following day, where there’d be a void where she should be. Would this be over, when there were miles between them once more? Would he ever kiss her again? His rehabilitation seemed almost a dreamstate, the way it had evolved, barely real even when she leaned in to brush her lips over his, each touch soft, fingers curled in the hair at the nape of his neck, other palm rest over his heart. 

 

At the train station Calliope looked as if she might cry, though she didn’t. He stood before her, ticket in hand, bag impossibly heavy on his shoulder, at a complete loss as to what to say now the time had come. How could he possibly begin to put into words-

 

“I have something for you.”

 

She was the one who broke the silence, avoiding his eyes as she reached into her coat pocket, then took his hand, pressing something cold into his palm. When she looked up at him her clear blue gaze was right on the edge of crumbling. 

 

“I want you to know you- you always have a place here. You don’t have to ask permission, or even tell me, you can just come, whenever you need to. I don’t care when, or why. You’ll always have somewhere separate…”

 

Spencer looked down to their hands, her fingers moving from his palm to reveal what she’d given him; it was a key, bright in its newness, a copy of the one for her apartment door. 

 

“Calliope…”

 

“Always.”

 

The parting touch of her lips was soft, a ghost compared to some they had shared. She had turned away first, hands in her pockets, head bowed low. Spencer looked down at the key, fingers closing in a tight fist around it. 

 

“Calliope!”

 

He caught her hand before she made it out of the revolving doors of the station, tugging her back and gathering her up against his chest, white hands clinging to his shoulders as he poured all his feeling into the kiss, oxygen to a suffocating man, saying everything words could not. 

 

Letting her go was one of the hardest things he'd ever done, the pain of it settling right in the centre of his sternum, throbbing intensely as she brushed her thumbs over his cheekbones, a tear winning out to settle on her lower lashes. 

 

“I'll miss you…” 

 

“You too…”

 

He knew the face looking back at him in the reflection of the train window. It had changed, in more ways than one. He'd put on some weight. The grey pallor had subsided. Other ways too, too subtle to be definable physically. Changed irrevocably. Pieced back together, maybe into something new. Like kintsugi. But it was Spencer Reid absolutely, looking back at him. 

 


	25. The Amnesty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again all ^^ A wee update for you. This may be the last one for a few days now, I have a really busy time ahead until next week, but we'll see. I actually want to write the next chapter a -lot- lol, so who knows, maybe I will forgo sleep sometime to work on it XD Anyway, please enjoy. I'll update again soon for those who want it :)

That first day without Spencer there, Calliope experienced a loneliness she had not known before in her own home. The silence and stillness was agony. She’d always been content enough in her own company, used to taking time away from the world alone when she needed to re-energize and refocus. This sense of loss was new, a sharp blade twisting in her side. 

 

She called her mother, talking about nothing much, asking after her and the puppy and how her garden was doing now the weather was turning. Ruth seemed to sense something was wrong as only a mother could and asked if she’d like to come for dinner, but she declined, not sure what she would say to explain the pain she was in. 

 

She took herself to the Metropolitan, cloistering herself away in the European wing, sheltered between the oils of Impressionists and Classicists, always a safe haven. Titian’s ‘Venus and Adonis’ hung glorious in it’s darkened frame, one of the prints in the book Spencer had gifted her with last birthday. The way that Venus clung to Adonis’ waist, her back to the beholder, face begging him silently not to leave her, she understood the painting in a way she had been unable to before.

 

He called her early that evening while she walked the length of 5th Avenue, the heaving thoroughfare with it’s excessive bodies better than her empty apartment. He let her know he was safely back in Washington, in his own home. Hundreds of miles away.

 

Her bed was cold that night, a vast, empty expanse. Sleep refused to come. He text her around one. Still awake too. 

 

_ Do you think it’s possible I have jetlag? _

 

_ We’re on the same timezone x _

 

_ Pity. Would have been a convenient excuse. _

 

She called him this time. Any struggle he might be having held the potential to be far more dangerous than her own. It was still early days and this was his first night unsupervised… 

 

“Have you slept at all?” she breathed as she cradled the phone between her cheek and shoulder, hugging her knees to her chest. 

 

“No. I’m having some difficulty getting comfortable…”

 

“So am I.” 

 

“I think I’m going to have to invest in some of that chamomile tea you kept giving me. It tastes a little like soap, but it helped.”

 

“I thought you would have been happy to be back in your own bed…” 

 

Silence. 

 

“Are you at work tomorrow..?”

 

“Morning briefing starts at nine. I’ve already been getting messages from JJ.”

 

“They missed you.”

 

“I think I’m ready. I uh, I’ve found a doctor too. Not a bureau appointed one. Someone external…”

 

“I think that’s a really good idea.”

 

“I made a promise. I intend to keep it.”

 

Her eyes fell on the pillow that had been his for a while. 

 

“Do it for yourself, not for me…”

 

“Calliope..?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“I- I miss you…”

 

“I miss you too…”

 

After he’d gone she curled up in the sheets, breathing in the scent where he’d been, already fading. 

 

Going back to her own work, she threw herself into teaching and an expanded commission book, taking on more to fill her time. She helped Melissa prep her portfolio for a college interview, went up to holding three life studies a week, took the gallery back from KJ’s hands and decided to completely overhaul the interior, redecorating the walls at night when the business was closed so she didn’t have to go to her empty home any more than necessary. 

 

All the time he was in DC, she and Spencer spoke daily on the phone, when he came home of an evening and she might still running cream paint over walls with a roller, phone on loudspeaker in the breast pocket of her shirt. He always asked about her day, as if he thought he might be missing out on something. The first few evenings he sounded tired, getting back into the routine of work clearly taxing, but bit by bit he seemed to be settling back in and this time she believed he was ready. Still, his first expedition back into the field had her contorted in knots. An arson case in San Francisco. When he’d called to say goodbye before he left for the flight, she had to exercise all her self control not to let the worry filter into her voice and down the phoneline. This was his life. He had to be allowed to return to it. 

 

When unable to talk he went back to texting her each night, letting her know he was okay. The messages came with new words, the same each night;

 

_ Goodnight, Calliope. I miss you. _

 

She would text back that she missed him too, the words too small for the true scope of his absence, the phrase now layered it seemed with more meaning, a way to tell one another the affection was still there, even across the distance. 

 

After a couple of weeks an envelope was waiting for her inside her front door, Spencer’s handwriting instantly recognisable as she scooped it up. She was already opening it up before she put the security chain across, pulling out the letter inside as sat on the foot of her bed:

 

_ Dear Calliope,  _

 

_ I know it’s been a while since we did this, but I thought it the best way to communicate what I wanted to. Through our letters I was always able to be my most honest with you. The pen enabled me to express myself in a way I sometimes find difficult in speaking aloud.  _

 

_ Your first letter arrived with a photograph, one of what would be many. That first photograph though, became my most treasured possession. I’m not sure you have ever known the full extent of it’s meaning to me. It’s not on my fridge, or in a frame. I keep it somewhere safe, because it is precious. Yours was the first life I could say unequivocally I helped to save, and in coming to know you after, I realised something; All life has value, but some souls  _ _ need _ _ to be in this world to make it a better place. I began to learn with that first photograph, and the message it carried with it, that you were one of these people. _

 

_ I don’t have an artistic eye. I can appreciate aesthetics, but not necessarily seize upon them to convey a message as you have done so many times to me. I’m a scientist, by nature. I rely on data, quantifiable proof through numbers and statistics, things that are measurable. It is difficult to be emotive with these things as your tools. _

 

_ I think though, I can do that today.  _

 

_ Enclosed is my photograph for you. I suspect probably the most important one I will ever take. It’s not beautiful, not in any conventional sense. But I wanted you to have it, because it is the best way I know how to show you the difference you have made in my world.  _

 

_ Yours, absolutely sincerely, _

 

_ Spencer Reid _

 

_ “After I spent what felt like an eternity drowning, you taught me how to breathe...” _

 

There was a small slip of paper enclosed, a printout on computer paper rather than anything glossy, folded in half to allow it to fit in the envelope. Opening it up, she felt herself smile, even as her chest tightened. It was a wall calendar, the paint behind it recognisable as Spencer’s kitchen. Several consecutive dates were crossed through with red pen, then April 5th encircled and underneath it written clearly:

 

_ 30 - Because of Calliope. _

 

He was wrong about the photo; it was absolutely beautiful to her and she tacked it up pride of place alongside it’s cousin from Bethesda Terrace.

 

Early May was the first time she genuinely worried he might have a slip. Very late one Friday night he had called her, still in Kansas. He was evasive and didn’t talk much at first. She probed at him gently, trying to get him to explain. It was always a challenge, getting him to share. As if he thought she was made of glass and the truth of what he did might shatter her. When he finally murmured that something had happened to sixty three people before they’d stopped the perpetrator that morning, she knew what ‘something’ translated to. It was the shoes that was sticking with him. There’d been much worse in the place where they had found their suspect, what he wouldn’t tell her, but it was the shoes. Dozens of pairs, all belonging to the sixty three people, piled up to taunt the next victim, right by the way out of the place they had been held. Piled up and unclaimed. 

 

She hadn’t heard him like that for a while… 

“Come to the city. Come here and rest with me…”

 

“I wish I could. But there’s still over fifty people’s families to find and inform. Most of them have never even been reported as missing. We’re going to be working through all this for days yet, maybe longer. I want to help bring these people home, as much as I can…”

 

No selfish need to see he was alright could override that. 

 

“I understand… I’ll still be here when it’s over. Look after those families. Yourself, too, Spencer...”

 

“Soon. I’ll be there soon.”

 

He was true to his word, too. 

 

Mid May was unseasonably warm in the city and she left the gallery doors pinned open during the day so the sunlight through it’s glass front didn’t turn the place into an oven. It meant she didn’t immediately realise she wasn’t alone as she hung a new canvas, no telltale tinkle of the chimes placed strategically above the doorframe  to herald a newcomer. It was only when there was the low sound of a throat being cleared, her arms high over head to hook the piece on the wall, gaze focused on keeping it straight as she called,

 

“One second, sorry, I’ll be right with you.” 

 

“It’s a little high on the left.” 

 

She almost dropped the painting. Unable to turn without risking falling off the stepladder she was perched on, she abandoned the canvas askew on the hooks, climbing down and turning to find Spencer stood with his hands in his pockets, satchel slung across his chest, a sheepish smile on his face. 

 

“I didn’t get a chance to call ahead, sorry, but I thought you would probably be here-”

 

He never finished the sentence, Calliope’s arms looped around his shoulders to pull him in, stood through her tiptoes to kiss him as if it’d been a thousand years rather than a couple of months. After a moment’s hesitation his hands found her waist, holding her close, murmuring in between touches of her lips,

 

“I don’t have long. JJ’s in a car outside…”

 

“What are you doing here?” she whispered, finally drawing away to cup his cheek, brow touching his jawline as she relaxed back into her heels, feeling his fingers curl slightly in the fabric of her shirt. 

 

“I was working. I’m supposed to be going back to the airport, but I wanted to see you before I left. I wanted to make sure you were okay...” 

 

There was something about the way he said it that flicked a warning light on in the back of her mind. He’d come to her gallery. It felt too spontaneous, somehow, for someone who fixated on privacy as much as he did… 

 

She tilt her head to look up at him, his hand moving to brush her hair away from her cheek when she did, hazel eyes inspecting her face as if checking for damage.

 

“What happened?”

 

His jaw tightened. A crese of a frown flickered between his eyebrows, the brief elation at being reunited already cracking. 

 

“Spencer?”

 

“Somebody murdered Gideon’s girlfriend…”

 

That was why he was there with her. 

 

“Oh my God…”

 

“He’s gone. It’s over. But I couldn’t be in New York working on that and- and not see you, even if it was only for a minute....” 

 

She nodded silently, then stretched up to brush another, much gentler kiss to his lower lip, breathing,

 

“I’m fine. You can see I’m fine. Everything is okay here.” 

 

She felt warm hands caress her cheeks, always surprised by his gentility, as if every touch required permission. 

 

“I’m sorry I can’t stay.”

 

“Another time. You’re needed back at home.” 

 

Lips brushed hers, then touched the bridge of her nose, thumbs skimming her skin, reluctant to let her go. 

 

“Please, give Agent Gideon my love…” 

 

He only parted from her when his phone began to ring, pulling it from his hip to answer, instantly flustered by the voice on the other end;

 

“I’ll be right out, JJ, one second, sorry-” 

 

“Go,” she whispered, smiling for him despite feeling both robbed and bitterly sorry for his boss. She didn’t know how him all that well, but he seemed a good man and she owed having Spencer in her world still to him, so far as she could tell. She couldn’t imagine how much it would cut her, to lose him now, and whatever they had, it was only just starting out, really. But losing him would be losing her world… Poor Gideon...

 

Spencer snapped his phone shut and stuffed it into his pocket, leaning in to brush another kiss to her forehead. 

 

“I have to go. Could I call you later?” 

 

“Always,” she replied softly, touching gentle lips to his jawline in return. 

 

Letting him go was a wrench but she smiled her best smile, not wanting him to worry about her any further. He had other concerns. He was out the door almost at a jog, down the pavement. She watched him from the window until he disappeared from view, but didn’t step out. He’d had JJ park some ways down the block, it seemed. Still hanging onto what separation he could, though God only knew what he imagined the blonde thought they were doing there. 

 

Singhing, she turned her attention back to the painting, sort of shaken from the surrealness that had been the flying visit. It was high on the left… 

 

“Come to Washington.” 

 

He was back, in the doorway, not quite in from the street, without his bag this time. Breathless, as though he’d run back. Calliope had made it as far as the first step up the ladder, twisting to stare back at him over her shoulder with large eyes as he reappeared. 

 

“I- that was meant to be a request. Sorry. I just- I can’t leave like this. I can’t. And I can’t stay.” 

 

“Spencer-”

 

He stepped in properly, coming over to offer her his hand, helping her get down as he continued,

 

“Please. Just for a couple of days. You have someone who covers when you’re not here, right? I’ll pay for her myself to come in, I know it’s an inconvenience. I know that- that this is a ridiculous request, actually. But I would really rather not be apart from you today…” 

 

Calliope peered up at him once she was back on solid ground. 

 

“Are you actually declaring an amnesty on DC?” she breathed. She hadn’t even finished wrapping her head around the fact he was in New York, nevermind this... 

 

“I don’t think there was ever technically a formal prohibition,” he replied with a thoroughly embarrassed smile. She felt his fingers tighten on hers, knowing how much of a limb he was going out on with this. Whatever had been done to Gideon’s girlfriend must had been truly awful…

 

“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”

 

“Completely. I do not want to leave this city without you…” 

 

Her fingers moved to interlace through his and she stepped closer to him, able to feel the tension radiating from him when she brushed a light kiss to his cheek.

 

“Fly back with JJ. I need to make some calls, close up here, pack a bag. You can’t keep her waiting any longer, you’re still working, right? I’ll take the train. It’ll save some awkward conversations, I’m betting. Pretty sure you shouldn’t be squeezing random civilians onto an FBI plane.”

 

“You’ll come?” he murmured, and despite the case he’d made he looked genuinely surprised at her agreement. 

 

“Give me a few hours. I’m sure I’ll hit Washington in time for dinner.”

 

It probably wasn’t what he’d envisioned with his heartfelt plea for her to go with him, but it was the logical option and it was enough that he actually broke into a lopsided smile. 

 

“I’ll come pick you up-” 

 

His phone was ringing again in his pant pocket.

 

“We’ll sort out logistics at the other end, go,” she replied, beginning to smile herself. He ignored his phone long enough to press a parting kiss to her lips, taking her soft hum of contentment at the contact with him as he left, cell at his ear;

 

“I’m coming, sorry, I forgot something important. Yes, I can forget things! I’ll be right there.” 

 

She laughed as she listened to him on the way out, her stomach rolling as she watched him jog past the window. This time, for once, watching him leave didn't hurt.

 

* * *

 

 

The train ride was surprisingly pleasant, the views from the window largely countryside blooming with the full force of late spring. It was the first time she’d made the journey and was more comfortable than the plane and only marginally longer, by the time she factored in the boarding and security queues at the airport. She sat and read mostly, trying to ignore the flip flop of butterflies in her stomach. This wasn’t her first trip to the city, but this one felt bigger. He’d asked her there this time. That felt important… 

 

The view changed from farms to woodland and in the end the beginnings of suburbia. Along the way she text Spencer every so often, estimating she’d pull into Union Station about a quarter to six. The sky was turning golden by the time her carriage slowed and drew into the platform, the throng of passenger’s offloading carrying her forwards through the unfamiliar territory. She’d navigated Grand Central plenty of times before, and that was bigger than this, but the art deco building she emerged into was large enough that it still span her about, not sure exactly where she was meant to be meeting him. Weaving through bodies across the tiled floor, she pulled her cell out, dialling Spencer’s number, nose crinkled in concentration as she listened to it ring over the noise around her. When it connected, she heard,

 

“Look to your left.” 

 

Glancing up, she saw him among a cluster of polished wooden benches, and broke into a smile, crossing across the hall when he added,

 

“I uh- I have company…”

 

She almost stopped, but not quite. Her pace slowed right down, the shift in him from how he’d been back in New York that morning entirely tangible down the phone. 

 

“What do you mean..?”

 

“Apparently it’s weird enough to warrant attention if I leave my desk early… And, well- now they want to say hello…”

 

A large group of children on a field trip and being ushered by a very stressed looking teacher were shepherded on from obscuring her eyeline, clearing a visible path to him, and immediately she realised what he was trying to warn her of; Derek and Penelope were sat on the bench beside where he was stood waiting, smiling as they came into view. 

 

“Oh...” she breathed. 

 

“Uhuh…”

 

“Profilers…”

 

She hung up the call, took a deep breath, hooked both thumbs in the pocket of her jeans to make sure she didn’t touch him and walked over as naturally as she could. As she approached the other pair stood, and by the time she stopped perhaps five feet short of the little group she was hyper conscious of all eyes on her. Spencer’s hazel ones deeply, silently apologetic. The amnesty was so going to be over after this...


	26. The Observatory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updatey time. I may not get another one out before Christmas, and this one didn't quite go where I thought it would, (darn you characters with your minds of your own), but hopefully I won't keep you too long. I hope you like this one. It's fluffier than melted marshmallows. As always, if you enjoy, please please comment/kudos! Many thanks, your Sleepy Author.

It took a moment to collect herself before Calliope smiled around at the waiting group, habitually tucking her hair behind one ear as she said,

 

“Wow, this is different. I don’t think I’ve ever had a welcoming committee before.”

 

In the periphery of her vision she saw Spencer swallow, thoroughly uncomfortable.

 

“It’s not every day Pretty Boy blows off work. We wanted to check in on him,” Morgan replied, smiling back, and although the words could have been teasing, there was something else in his eyes as he reached out to offer her a hand. Calliope arched an eyebrow at the gesture. Right. They weren’t exactly on hugging terms. She politely took his calloused palm and shook, suddenly feeling as if she were being greeted for a job interview-

 

That was it. Concern. Spencer vanishing was weird enough to warrant attention, he’d said. She knew that herself… Did Morgan know, what he’d been through behind closed doors, in the aftermath of Atlanta?

 

“Actually, I’m in the city on a research project, for a potential gallery exhibit. Doctor Reid offered to act as a sort of guide, get me to the right building of the Smithsonian for the pieces I want to study. Given the size of the place, I need the help. I don’t have any other contacts in DC, he’s doing me a huge favour.”

 

She felt his fingers tighten slightly around her hand at this, before he let go and her own gripped the strap of her duffle over her shoulder, holding his gaze. Trying to lie to a profiler. Wow, Callie, go big or go home, huh?

 

Spencer’s expression in the corner of her eye echoed her thoughts. There was a definite panic there now.

 

Morgan took the bait however, not because anyone believed it, but because he wasn’t intentionally trying to embarrass his young friend;

 

“Huh. Good for you. You’ll have to drop us a line if you do the show. We might come take it in. Always good to see folks we interact with doing well down the line.”

 

“I’ll send tickets.”

 

She was trying to ignore the fact that throughout the entire conversation Penelope was smiling bright enough to light up the entire train station. It was incredibly distracting while trying to maintain her cucumber cool routine. Calliope gave her a polite one in return, still not sure what to make of her much more than Morgan. There hadn’t been the chance, to just meet these people in the normal world…

 

“Hi again. It’s super neat to see you.” The greeting from the other woman was buoyant, beaming, as if she were royalty or something.

 

“Thanks. You too,” she replied with a hint of a laugh, beginning to feel some warmth rising in her cheeks. The feeling of being a thing in a petri dish was back.

 

“Guys, we- we should probably let her get to her hotel. Check in and things.”

 

All three of them turned their gazes to Spencer as he finally spoke up. His features were very carefully neutral.

 

“That would be great, thank you,” Calliope breathed, seizing on the out, fairly certain he was going to implode if they were there much longer.

 

“Oo, where are you staying?” Garcia looked expectantly between them, a friendly enough question, not unusual in polite conversation, but it was enough to stump the brilliant doctor.

 

“Hampton Inn.” Reflex made her answer. Law of averages said there had to be one in a city as big as DC. It seemed a safe bet and Spencer’s quick nodding in agreement cemented it.

 

“Blah, Reid, you should have told us she was coming, I could have gotten her into a cutie boutique bed and breakfast, not the Hampton!”

 

“It’s fine, I don’t think I’ll be spending much time there. I really do need to go shower and things though, long journey on public transport. It was nice seeing you again...” Calliope gave them both one of her best teaching smiles, then stepped back a couple of paces, trying to get him to go with her. Morgan gave an almost imperceptible nod. Joke was over.

 

“Come on, Silly Girl, I promised you dinner. Callie. Enjoy your trip. Don’t let Reid get you too lost.”

 

He tucked an arm around Garcia’s waist, steering her away, and Calliope raised her eyebrows as she heard her hiss when they departed,

 

“You should have asked them to come!”

 

She waited until they’d cleared the hall and gone through the swing doors before she finally looked up at Spencer, gaze met with a smile that was somewhere between sheepish and mortified.

 

“Doctor Reid?” The smile grew fractionally as he spoke. Callie bit back one of her own.

 

“Too much?”

 

“Maybe a little.”

 

She laughed first, the soft sound dissipating the tension, his low murmur of a chuckle following, and by the time they turned to start weaving their way towards the exit he looked less tense. She still refrained from touching him though, even reaching for his hand feeling taboo.

 

“Did I just get the ‘what are your intentions’ once over?” She looked up at him with a wry smile as he held a door open for her, letting her stoop under his arm to start down the steps towards the road.

 

“I don’t think so. They- Morgan has been watching me rather closely since I came back to work. I know he means well. I don’t know what’s been discussed among my colleagues but I get the feeling certain things have been disclosed to my team in interest of my own safety…”

 

“Your friends worry about you,” she summarised and some of the discomfort over the encroachment on her arrival faded away.

 

“That and my social life is seemingly fascinating to everyone,” he replied with another breath of a laugh, the sound not entirely comfortable. “Apparently once they realised I wasn’t doing anything untoward natural curiosities took over. Garcia was particularly interested in the fact I was meeting you.”

 

As they reached the sidewalk and began their walk through the city, the emptiness of her palm was becoming more noticeable to her.

 

“She, uh- she was very sweet to me, in Atlanta… They all were, honestly. I suppose their interest could be taken as a compliment?”

 

“I suppose. I- I think perhaps it’s just been a bad couple of days for everyone, with what happened to Gideon’s friend and everything else… Garcia seems sort of taken with you, Morgan’s happy when Garcia is happy… We’re all looking for good things today.”

 

Slender fingers reached out and curled around his gently. So what if they might have an audience. He needed her to hold his hand.  

 

Hazel eyes flickered down to her, hints of a smile lifting the corners of his mouth, and after a moment his fingers moved to interlace through hers.

 

“Are you okay?” she breathed.

 

“Better now,” he replied quietly. Calliope nodded, squeezing his hand, then cast her gaze down the red brick street they were walking along, eyes widening as she saw the tip of the Capitol Building rising ahead.

 

“Whoah.”

 

Spencer followed her eyeline, then smirked down at her.

 

“Surely you've seen the Capitol before?”

 

“When I was maybe eleven and on a school field trip, sure. This is a little different.” She smiled up at him and felt his fingers tighten on hers when she did.

 

“We can sightsee, if that's what you want?”

 

“Not tonight,” she replied softly, smile growing a little, her gaze cast back towards the white spire. “Hey, I'm not actually going to be staying at the Hampton, am I?”

 

Spencer laughed at this and she felt better. He was okay.

 

“I would hope not. I sort of assumed that you would stay with me…”

 

She could hear the blushing through his voice before she looked up at him, squeezing his fingers in turn as she saw his sheepish smile.

 

“So did I.”

 

They settled back into an easy amble along the red brick path, Spencer steering her away from the Capitol Building after a little while and across the plaza, the familiar sight of his apartment block in the distance.

 

“I didn't realise last time I was here how close you were to all this, I just sort of threw myself out of the cab, I was so sure I wouldn't beat you here,” she said with a low laugh as they crossed over the main road dividing them from the building.

 

“I've found it inspires a sense of patriotism that can be beneficial when I'm working,” Spencer replied with a sort of wry smile, holding the door open for her when they reached the block.

 

“G-Man. Of course.” She smirked up at him, though found it entirely endearing.

 

He took her bag despite her protests she could manage before they started the climb to his floor, other hand still wound through hers, seemingly intent on holding on as long as he could.

 

“We've been promised that we'll be relieved by another team, at least for forty eight hours. Gideon for longer, I hope. There shouldn't be any phonecalls this time, at least for a couple of days.”

 

“How is Agent Gideon?” she asked tentatively.

 

“He came back to the office… Hotch had to force him to leave, in the end. I think he would have just buried himself in his work, if he'd been allowed to. I don't know where he's going to go. I suppose the cabin. It's not as if he can go home.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“That's where it happened…”

 

When they reached his apartment door he paused, looking down at her, brows furrowed a little, the thoughts visibly flicking behind his eyes.

 

“What is it?” she asked softly.

 

“I'm just glad you're here…”

 

She noted when they were inside the apartment the deadbolt and the security chain both went across immediately, and though he undid his gun holster, he left it on the kitchen table, safety on but readily available. She stood in the doorway to the kitchen, watching him place the weapon, head rest lightly on the doorframe.

 

“You said he was gone?” she asked softly, almost able to see the thought patterns unwinding, his mind visibly pinned on the fact someone had gotten to the murdered woman in his boss’ home.

 

“Dead.”

 

“Okay.”

 

She smiled gently up at him when he looked over at her.

 

“So. Next question; will I be on the couch tonight..?”

 

* * *

 

 

Her duffle went under the foot of his bed, toothbrush next to his in the bathroom, grey leather boots tucked neatly in the hall beside his softened Converse.

 

They sat on the carpet in front of the couch rather than on the furniture itself, Calliope with her legs curled beneath herself, drawn into his side, his arm looped around her, trying to not hold on too tight. He didn’t tell her any more about the events which had led him to ask her there and she didn’t ask. The tragedy seemed never ending. Outside the sounds of the city were almost a comfort. At least the world was still turning.

 

“The distance feels bigger than before, doesn’t it?”

 

Spencer glanced down at her when her low voice broke the silence of the apartment, met with clear blue eyes looking up at him.

 

“It has felt very large indeed, the last few days,” he admitted in a low reply, nodding slowly.

 

“Spencer, I- this might not be the time, but I could use some clarity, I suppose, given that you wanted me to come here, and what prompted the request; are we a thing?”

 

“A thing?” Spencer echoed, looking down at her with a bemused expression.

 

“Mm. I know that what happened at my place, when you were sick, could have just been the intensity of the situation. And when you showed up at the gallery this morning, I didn’t stop to think about the way I greeted you. But, well, with your team being at the station today and stuff, I- I don’t want to assume things are there between us which aren’t.”

 

He blinked, realising what she was asking. Where did they stand? There hadn’t been a name put on it, he hadn’t wanted to assume either. Quite frankly he didn’t have the experience to do so. But Gideon’s girlfriend had been murdered and everything in him had told him get to Calliope, keep her close, keep her safe because he could not imagine what that loss would feel like if he was in Jason’s shoes…

 

“We’re a thing to me,” he murmured.

 

Her smile was soft but there was a light in her eyes. To cement his words he bowed his head, brushing his lips over hers. The word ‘girlfriend’ felt bizarre, not one he would ever thought he would use in reference to his own world. Maybe he’d get there in the end. For now the coy official declaration was enough. It wasn’t a one off.

 

Her hand found his cheek as she returned the kiss, light fingers tracing the stubble that had begun to come in after the long days that had led him here. His own curled loosely in her hair, brushing through the warm waves at the nape of her neck, and he imagined he might have felt her shiver...

 

He didn’t know how much time they lost there, but at some point she had moved into his lap as if it were her natural place, the weeks they had been apart seeming to dissolve. When they eventually parted, breathless, skin tingling, she touched her brow to his, whispering that she’d missed him, the unacknowledged code between them. The weight of her small frame rest on his thighs was startlingly new and different, but wanted, and to keep her there a while longer he enfolded her in both arms, murmuring her name in reply, all he could manage.

 

When pulses eventually settled and heads cleared, they ordered Chinese food, Calliope laughing that they couldn’t live on takeout every time they saw one another. Spencer made a mental note of this, filing it away for later, and while they cleared away the remnants of orange chicken cartons he caught her peering at calendar of his kitchen wall, fifty nine days now crossed though in the red Sharpie.

 

“Every day, it becomes easier. It hasn’t gone away yet, but it’s getting there,” he breathed. She turned her gaze to him, nodding slowly and replied in a quiet voice,

 

“I’m proud of you…” It could have been patronising but she was sincere.

 

Getting into bed beside her that night felt like coming home. His was narrower than hers, but it hardly mattered. She was at his side, fingers curling in the fabric of his tee at his waist, languid kisses passing between them in the dark. Spencer was exhausted, but fought sleep as long as he could, not wanting to miss a moment with her. He only gave in when she stilled, his last waking thought a hope that he would never know what it would feel like, to have this forcibly ripped away.

 

* * *

 

 

His alarm woke him first, screeching at six a.m, having forgotten to turn it off. Reaching blindly to try and silence the offending noise, he felt movement beside him, blank for a moment before he remembered Calliope was there. She let out a soft noise of complaint over the wake up call, until he finally managed to press the right button and shut it off.

 

“Are you leaving..?” he heard her mumble as he settled back onto the pillow, feeling her fingers close around his beneath the covers.

 

“I’m not, I swear…” he whispered in reply, drawing her hand up to skim a kiss over her knuckles, and they had both fallen back to sleep within a minute or two after.

 

The second time he woke naturally, and immediately he knew something was different. Still coming to, it took him longer than it should have to figure it out. He’d wound himself around her from behind, arm tucked about her waist, her leg woven through his, pressed back into him as he held her. Still sleeping, by the rhythm of her breathing. Oblivious.

 

Hyper conscious of doing anything that might wake her, Spencer lay very, very still, trying to wrap his head around the fresh form of intimacy he’d found himself in. Apparently his need to know she was safe had seeped into his unconscious mind and resulted in bodily shielding her…

 

Or, maybe not. When she finally woke almost an hour later, she rolled over just enough to look back at him over her shoulder, and before he could make apologies and peel himself away she tilt her head and kissed him, a soft breath of a sound that might have been contentment leaving her. She didn't seem phased by his invasion.

 

They lay together for a while, neither willing to let daylight dictate the notion of leaving the bed. Calliope rolled at one point to face him, cradled in the crook of his arm, hazel gaze taking in her features.

 

“Morning,” she murmured as he studied her, a hazy smile crossing her face.

 

“Good morning,” he replied quietly, feeling his features mirror hers.

 

“It’s been too long since I woke up next to you…”

 

Spencer felt a murmur of agreement leave himself as she kissed him. He’d almost forgotten, that life had felt like this for a little while.

 

As tempting as it might have been to stay in bed with her all day, he eventually rose to make coffee and when he carried the cups back to find her sat up and stretching, he was struck by the image of her like that, sundressed by the glow through the drapes, her tousled waves gathered up in one hand as she lengthened her neck. There but for the two hundred and forty three miles between them…

 

The familiar scent of orange blossom filtered through the crack beneath the door when she used his shower, and as they stood beside one another at the sink to brush their teeth, Calliope still wrapped up in a towel, her shoulders shining with the moisture clinging to them, there was a sense of belonging.

 

Not wanting to waste the precious hours they had, when they left the apartment block Spencer stopped to buy a carry along breakfast of bran muffins from a bakery two minutes away from his building, their free hands wound together as he offered her the chance to do anything she wanted in the city at all during the day, but he had plans for the evening, a knowing smile on his face when he told her. Only fifteen minutes from his apartment, the first stop was the National Gallery and despite Calliope’s protests that he couldn’t always indulge her, he’d ushered her inside, taking her straight through to the Italian Renaissance collection. The Da Vinci ink drawings had been what caught her up in the end, the simple sketches drawing her in past the opulent oils, her pale face lit up as she studied the quieter, private works of the master.

 

“They have some of his notebooks in London, you know,” he murmured as he stood beside her, thumb brushing over hers as she took in a fluidic little drawing of a woman peering back over her shoulder, the few strokes in sienna ink creating a flirtatious smile.

 

“We should go there one day,” Calliope replied softly. Spencer smiled at this. We.

 

After the museum they walked to the Ellipse, stopping on the lawns almost perfectly between the Washington Monument and the White House in the distance. Calliope produced her Polaroid camera from her bag, grinning at him as she said,

 

“Play tourist with me.” By the time they moved on they had a print each, taken at arm’s length by the blonde, Spencer stooped in close to her, cheek brushing hers, hands on her waist to get them both in frame, the presidential building in the background. In his she’d kissed as cheek as the shutter closed.

 

Their path took them along the Reflecting Pool, past the Lincoln Memorial, though Potomac Park and finally to the edge of the river by mid afternoon, where Calliope sat on the grass at the bank and slipped off her boots before resting her feet in the cold water. Spencer settled beside her, though his shoes stayed on, pulling off his satchel as she said,

 

“It’s pretty here. I can see why you like it.”

 

“It’s very different to where I grew up. I didn’t realise how much green there could be in a city,” he replied with a slight laugh as he relaxed back into his palms planted just behind his hips on the ground.

 

“Do you think you’ll always be here?”

 

“As long as I have a job, yes. I might go back to Nevada one day, but I can’t really imagine leaving the BAU. It’s home as much as any building…”

 

Calliope nodded slowly, her gaze on the moving water, breeze lifting the tips of her hair a little.

 

“What about you? Do you think you’ll stay in New York? You spoke about Europe once.” As he asked the question, Spencer found it made his chest tighten a little.

 

“New York is the dream. I love it there. It’s my home. It’s my livelihood. It’s everything,” she breathed, running a hand through her hair to sweep her bangs out of her eyes as the breeze tousled it.

 

The moment she’d said it, Spencer noticed a change in her face, realising the same thing he had. Two hundred and forty three miles, with very little likelihood of shrinking.

 

“There’s a Federal mansion not too far from here, if you’d like to see it? The gardens there contain some heirloom species that date back over a century.”

 

She looked over at him with a sort of feigned smile and nodded, then leaned over and kissed him before he could start getting up, her fingers brushing through his hair at his temple as she did.

 

By the time they’d toured Tudor Place and the house closed to the public it was gone six, but he didn’t lead her home. Their path instead took them further into Georgetown, Calliope visibly falling in love with the architecture and the redbrick streets lined with colour from boutiques and galleries and bars.

 

“Where are we going now?” she asked curiously after a while, Spencer feeling the nerves that had been bubbling for a while peak as he replied,

 

“Well, I thought perhaps it would be appropriate if I bought you dinner…”

 

Calliope tilt her head, peering up at him, fondness in her eyes as she breathed,

 

“Are you taking me on a date?”

 

“We can’t live on takeout every time we see one another.”

 

They wound up in a tiny 60’s styled supper club, the sort of place Calliope suspected you had to know somebody who knew somebody in order to even be aware of, a live jazz singer performing as they were seated at their table. Over Cajun food they fell into discussion around Da Vinci’s sketchbooks and the inventions that should probably be credited to him, Spencer gleefully explaining just how sound his attempts at both a helicopter and a tank could have been from an engineering standpoint, while Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone were performed lovingly at the back of the room. By the time they were done eating they sat with fingers entwined on the table top, Calliope listening to the singer contently with her cheek in her palm, swaying almost imperceptibly to Aretha Franklin’s ‘Unforgettable’.  He found himself watching her rather than the performer. As first dates went, he would like to think he’d not done too badly.

 

It was past ten when they left the club, the night air still chill even in late May. Calliope shivered at the change in temperature, Spencer immediately draping his scarf over her shoulders as he said,

 

“There’s one more place I thought you’d like, if you’re not too tired..?”

 

“I’m not tired,” she replied with a soft smile, and stood through her tiptoes to brush a kiss to his lower lip.

 

Her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, they strolled out of the town and through the glow of streetlamps along quieter paths lined with trees, the blonde glancing up at him occasionally with curious eyes, looking for some sort of clue as to where he was taking her. He was resolutely tight lipped though, until they turned off through iron gates and up a slope, a large white building with a domed annex ahead, his companion’s eyes widening as she took it in.

 

“What’s this?”

 

“I lecture at Georgetown from time to time. I’ve made some acquaintances through the faculty, including one or two in the astrological society,” he replied, trying not to smile too much in case it appeared he was showboating. When they reached the building he untucked her hand from his arm to key in the combination for the electronic lock that looked oddly out of place on the 19th century door, then held it open for her, saying as he did,

 

“Be careful. Don’t move for a moment.”

 

Once he was in as well he closed the door behind them and they were plunged into a darkness that was absolute.

 

“Spencer?”

 

The glow of LED light broke through the darkness as Spencer switched on the torch on his phone, taking her hand with his free one.

 

“This way. We’re going up some stairs, keep ahold of the rail.”

 

The steps led up in a spiral, Calliope holding his fingers tight all the way, maybe three flights of them altogether. When the floor levelled out he took her shoulders, steering her safely away from the top of the stairs, hearing her laugh softly.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“It’ll be ready in a second, stay right there.”

 

He heard her breath catch as a few mechanical shunts broke the quiet, then the low hum of machinery accompanied a crack of light filtering down from the ceiling, the blue misty glow of night sky appearing, enough after the blackness to see by. Spencer watched her as she came into sight, her head tipped back to look above, pale features positively glowing after the dark. She was smiling, mouth open a little.

 

“Calliope..?”

 

When she looked down he was already stood at the telescope in the centre of the floor, lens cap in his hand. He tipped his head slightly, the motion beckoning her to join him.

 

“What is all this?” she breathed as she padded over, fingers roped together as though afraid of touching anything.

 

“Just something you said, before- before everything went wrong for a while; you don’t get to see stars in New York. I thought I might bring them to you…”

 

“You’re giving me stars..?”

 

“Well, when you say it like that…”

 

She was staring at him, lips part a little, blue eyes huge with their pupils dilated in the dark. He’d overshot. Mistake. Could he abor-

 

She kissed him. The kind of kiss that left his head spinning and his pulse doing all manner of irregular things, the kind of kiss that’d only gone two, maybe three times before and made him forget exactly where he was and why.

 

It took a moment to regroup, but when he opened his eyes she was looking at him in a way he’d never seen before.

 

“I- let me show you how it works…” he managed, the only words he was able to form coherently,

 

He held her waist as she peered into the lens of the telescope, chin rest lightly on her shoulder, taking enormous pleasure in every low utterance of wonder that came from her. Every time he changed the co-ordinates he would whisper to her what she was viewing, able to share through her awe.

 

Distance was only a matter of perception, really. The celestial bodies she was viewing were billions of miles away, but in the moment they were within her grasp. She was in his. Two hundred and forty three miles could be two hundred and forty three billion, but only if it was allowed to be.


	27. The Advice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello my lovelies, I hope you all enjoyed your winter festivities, whatever demonination or faith you might be and are looking forwards to 2019! I myself have had a merry ol' time of it as only a Pagan can lol, and as such my muse has been suffering quietly in a corner ploughed with too much cake and whiskey XD She's back today though, and brought a new chapter for you! I hope you enjoy it and that it's okay, I feel sorta rusty after a couple of weeks without updating >.>
> 
> Also thank you so very much to the recent influx of new readers, leaving the sweetest and comments and a big pile of Kudos. I am so flattered people like my ramblings. I promise you, I will finish this baby. I'd say we're maybe two thirds of the way there now? So cloooose!
> 
> As always, feedback hugely appreciated, please comment/kudos!

**_"Your blessings lay beyond your fear." - Shannon L. Alder. ___**

____

* * *

  
  


The Sunday of Calliope’s trip to Washington began with a joint effort to make French toast, Spencer declaring her more of a hindrance than a help when she began a game of smudging maple syrup on his cheek, until on the fourth dab he’d wheeled about and chased the shrieking blonde through the apartment, brandishing the eggy mixing spoon. Neither noticed the smell of burning when he eventually caught her, bottling on actually smearing her with batter to instead find himself wrapped up in an enthusiastic kiss against the back of the couch, an extremely effective distraction technique. The smoke alarm ultimately alerted them, Calliope laughing as she unwound herself from him to skitter into the kitchen and dump the smoking pan into the sink. 

“Sorry,” she said with a grin as Spencer wafted a dishcloth under the alarm until it stopped beeping, sounding anything but. 

After breakfast and showers he took her down to the garage of his building, her face lighting up when she saw the ‘65 Volvo Amazon in his parking spot. 

“Hello, beautiful,” she breathed as she ran a palm over the powder blue hood, then looked up at him with a bright smile, Spencer rocking through the balls of his feet a little.

“You like her?”

“She’s perfect. I would have expected nothing less,” she replied, and when they were out of the basement and headed out of the heart of the city she wound the passenger side window down, looking out into the sunlight, arm outstretched to dance her fingers through the slipstream of air the car created. 

A twenty minute drive brought them into Rock Creek Park, Spencer parking up by the Boulder Bridge, Calliope abandoning her jacket on the backseat to walk white shouldered in the dappled light coming through the trees with him. 

“I suppose Washington is pretty neat. I mean, this is no Central Park, but, you know, it’s okay,” she teased as they ambled. Spencer chuckled, giving her hand a light tug. 

“Concede. You like it here.” 

“You know I do. I wish we had longer. You’re back to work tomorrow, right?” 

“Mm. I’m not sure what exactly I will be going back into, but I daresay Hotch will want us business as usual as soon as possible. It’s how we operate; move on and help someone else. There’s always another Unsub.” 

“Do you think Agent Gideon is going to be alright?” Her voice was softer, the playfulness gone. 

“I have no idea,” he replied, peering down at her as he spoke. She nodded slowly, knowing what that look meant without him having to say it. 

“I’ll head back home tonight. If he’s there tomorrow, would- would you please tell him I’m thinking of him? I don’t know if it will mean anything to him…”

“I’m sure it will.” Spencer gave her a solemn little nod, trying to ignore the pang in his chest at the idea of her leaving already. There was never enough time… 

As the midday sun climbed and the air grew hotter, Calliope abandoned the trail they were walking and her boots on the path too, paddling shin deep in the creek, skirts of her dress clutched in one hand to keep the hem dry while her other waved to him on the bank, trying to coax him in with her;

“Come on, the water’s beautiful!” 

“You can’t be serious, do you have any idea what the microbial load could be down there?” he laughed from his dry spot, obstinately shaking his head.

“Microbial load? I’m walking in it, not drinking it!” she called back with a giggle, unperturbed. “It’s clear, I think I even saw a fish, come on!”

No amount of bargaining won him over, though, and in the end she’d walked upstream through the gently churning brook, basking in the sunlight as Spencer kept pace with her on dry land, shaking his head occasionally with an amused smirk. 

They stopped for lunch in a grassy clearing, Calliope still barefoot as she sat with legs outstretched to let them dry, Spencer producing cling wrapped sandwiches and hand sanitizer from his satchel, his companion giggling as he refused her one until she’d used the other. After they’d eaten she settled back to lay on the soft greenery beneath them, hands folded over her stomach, silver hair fanned beneath her was she watched clouds wheel overhead. Spencer looked down at her a while, things quiet between them but in an easy sort of way, relaxed enough there wasn’t a need to fill the silence. After a while he moved to settle onto his back beside her, knees drawn up, hands mimicking hers to rest on his middle, hearing her speak softly close to his ear once he was down;

“Thank you for inviting me here, Spencer. It’s been wonderful…”

“You’re welcome. In hindsight, I think I should have asked you here much sooner,” he replied quietly, almost sheepish. A hand left his waist to reach out for hers, fingers linking together in the grass between them. 

“Good things come to those who wait, I guess,” Calliope breathed, smiling up at the sky, her thumb brushing his knuckle. 

“You could come back some other time, if you wanted..?”

She turned her head to meet his gaze as he broached the tentative idea, her clear blue eyes large at the idea that perhaps the boundary he’d set previously might be more permanently lifted. 

“You would want that?”

“Very much so… I- I am beginning to think that the mutual exclusivity I have imposed between my world here and you is- I think- I know it’s costing us. At the train station, you were so quick to lie for me, to Morgan and Garcia… At this point I am beginning to wonder why I’m putting that on you. I want to shelter you from what I do, but not at the cost of alienating you. I have seen in the last few days that- well, every moment is precious. They shouldn’t be wasted on secrets and lies...”

She was beginning to smile, eyebrows arched just a little, and Spencer swallowed, wanting to try and express himself as clearly as possible. Deep breath. Try again. 

“I would like it if we could have more weekends like this. As often as possible, as- as often as you would like, if you want to…”

“I would like that, too,” she whispered, the smile making her features glow more than the afternoon sun possibly could. Her free hand brushed his jawline as he smiled back at her, and when she kissed him his own found its way to the nape of her neck on instinct, drawing her in as his eyes closed. He was still rarely the one to initiate contact, but bit by bit he was responding more confidently, beginning to understand by the way her breathing changed or her skin goosebumped when he was doing things right. The warm, soft place beneath her hair was a favourite and today it was enough to have her roll in to face him, hand releasing his to curl into the front of his shirt and hold on tight. 

Kissing Calliope and being kissed by her was still an enthralling experience, but it was something he felt he was getting a handle on. 

Everything else was still- New.

Gentle fingers slipped into the collarline of his shirt to fleetingly caress was new. Open palm running down her arm until it came to rest on her hip was new. Feeling arms about his shoulders, drawing him with her, drawing him down as she rolled back until he was over her was new, forearm planted on the ground to keep from leaning into her entirely. The embers beginning to glow in the pit of his stomach were not new, not exactly, but they were hotter now than they had been yet…

It was almost a relief when the kiss broke, because he wasn’t sure what he would have done with it if it had continued to escalate. He looked down at her breathlessly, trying to contain the trembling in his fingers as he smoothed a hand over her waves, thumb tracing her flushed cheek as she held his gaze, her own slender fingers brushing his hair behind his ear to better see his face as she whispered, 

“I have a confession to make…”

“What’s wrong?” he murmured, catching her hand to skim a kiss into her palm and buy another couple of seconds to settle himself. He could actually see her tensing as he looked down at her and wondered if perhaps he’d crossed a line he wasn’t aware of during their embrace, though she’d seemed enthused enough at the time...

“I just- this might be a little much right now, but if we’re going to keep this thing going, I want to be honest with you…” The colour in her face was growing deeper. What had he done, or not done, what signal had he misinterpreted- 

“I um… I haven’t been with anyone since I was- you know… Since I was hurt. I- I may still have a hang-up or two, which I know is stupid, because of what I do for a living but I uh… It’s been a really long time and I sort of figured that part of my life was done with, so um… Yeah.” 

Spencer frowned, taking a moment to process what she was talking about, until the pieces clicked into place and what she meant dawned on him. He felt heat rush into his own face, but had enough prescience to realise just what a vulnerable moment this was for her, even if to him it made absolutely no difference whatsoever because in all honesty it wasn’t something he had even considered previously. He bit the inside of his cheek, trying to figure out what to say, his fingers still running over her pale hair, until he breathed, 

“Calliope, there is no need to explain yourself to me for anything… Nothing has to happen that- Anyone that has been through what you have-” 

He stopped, the words feeling cloying in his mouth. What was the appropriate response here? Clear blue eyes were gazing up a him, almost looking ashamed, something he was entirely unaccustomed to seeing in her. She was confident in everything normally, afraid of nothing, and this was a huge conversation to be having in a public park, even if they were seeming alone, what was he supposed-  


“I haven’t been with anyone.” 

Honesty. One vulnerability in exchange for another. The one thing he knew he could tell her as an absolute truth to reassure her that she had nothing to be ashamed of… 

Her face never changed. Not so much as a flicker. Fingers moved in his to interlace and she lifted her head from the grass, kiss brushed on his lower lip soft before she breathed, 

“Spencer Reid, you are beautiful...”

Only she could say that and make it sound as if it were a universal truth. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


He seriously considered asking her to stay one more night. After the admission in the park, taking her to the station that evening felt too soon. It wasn’t his work that stopped him asking, but hers. He couldn’t keep pulling her away from her world on a whim. She belonged back in New York, even if he wanted her there. They parted with a promise that she would come back soon, maybe for her birthday, if he was in the city, and one of those head spinning kisses. That night she called him and they talked past midnight, his revelation seeming to have changed nothing between them. Maybe she’d already suspected. Maybe it had helped her feel better as intended. Maybe it really made no difference. Their relationship had been built through words first, and while the physical aspect that had begun to develop was cherished, it was not what defined his connection to her. 

Still, he missed her warmth beside him that night enough that it stopped him sleeping. Each parting became harder, rather than easier as he felt by all rights it should be. Practice did not make perfect. There was no getting used to it, and moreover promises made with the best of intentions to see one another more often were almost impossible to keep… 

Gideon was in the office that Monday. Spencer found the fact vaguely horrifying. He avoided him for the first hour or so, making busy at his desk. There was no briefing for an external case that morning. Hotch wasn’t ready to send them back out in the field. He picked over incomplete case reviews without making any actual progress, then about half ten finally plucked up the courage to knock on the door of the senior agent’s office, peering in when there was a vague wave of a pen as permission to enter. Gideon never looked up as Spencer hovered in the doorway, able to feel the pain rolling off his mentor like osmosis. 

“Calliope wanted you to know she is thinking of you…” 

If he heard he didn’t acknowledge it. 

Strauss pulled them in one by one for a ‘debrief’ as she put it over the course of the day. Spencer would have called it more a forty five minute inquisition. Apparently determined to prove that someone was the weak link in the team’s leadership and ultimately culpable for both Sarah’s death as well as that of Frank Breitkopf and Jane Hanratty, it was hard to bite his tongue and not tell her just how odious she was being. Instead, he steadfastly maintained there was nothing that could have been done to prevent the unfortunate deaths, the only opinion he had to offer on Hotch that he had handled the situation with consummate professionalism. 

That evening he stayed later than the others, lingering and reorganising his files, until the last lamps left on were the one at his desk and the one in Gideon’s office. He wanted to wait, to be sure that he left. His cell phone buzzed around seven, Calliope letting him know she had locked up the gallery. He text back an apology that he was still working, gaze cast over to the window with it’s half spooled blind, then settled back to the next request for a psychological assessment on his desk, flipping through the file. 

Gideon had emerged around eight, frowning when he saw him still there. He didn’t say anything, just left in silence. Only then did Spencer pack up for the day and on the bus home he called Calliope, letting her know he’d passed her message on. 

This became his new routine in the following days. He would stay behind, waiting to ensure that Gideon didn’t simply work himself into a stupor. He still wasn’t speaking to anyone, not really, beyond occasional requests for files to Garcia or JJ. Spencer wished he had something he could say, to lessen the suffering he was experiencing. Gideon had always come through for him, always. But now when he needed someone he was helpless. All he could do was hang around and make sure he wasn’t alone as much as possible, short of actually following him to wherever he spent his nights… 

The Wednesday evening he text Calliope explaining what was keeping him so late. The Thursday he’d called her from the coffee station once everyone else was gone, Gideon’s office door closed to the world. On the Friday the door had opened, the older agent beckoning him over in silence. There was a chess set already in place on the desk when Spencer entered and they’d settled into the game wordlessly, almost an a half hour passing before his mentor spoke suddenly as he castled his rook and king; 

“I don’t know how much my advice is worth anymore, but there’s something I want you to understand; however you live your life, make sure you’re left with nothing to regret, Reid…”

Spencer looked up from where he’d been squinting at the board, eyebrows arched, to find Gideon smiling at him in a hollow, bittersweet sort of way, the devastation etched right down into the pupils of his dark eyes. 

“Please tell your friend thank you for her thoughts…”

Gideon didn’t say where he was going for the weekend. Spencer called Calliope from the bus, even though it was gone eleven by the time they left. She listened as he confided just how worried he was for the other man, how powerless he felt to help him. She couldn’t fix it any more than he could but she listened. 

The following Monday, again, Gideon was back in the office, and the routine resumed, Spencer lingering behind and playing chess with him after hours so he didn’t have to go home or wherever it was he went. One evening he confided that he had put the apartment on the market, unable to return there. 

Contact with Calliope suffered with these lengthened days, but she was entirely understanding. One evening a blue envelope was on his doorstep when he got home, but it wasn’t addressed to him. It was for Gideon. Spencer had waited until they were settled in for their evening game before he’d handed it over, clueless as to what it contained. He made a point of averting his gaze while it was opened, knowing with her track record it would be something personal just for his mentor. A low rumble of a throat being cleared had commanded his attention back, and it was to find a Polaroid of himself smiling back at him, one of the ones she’d snatched during her trip to DC. It had a caption underneath, but the wording wasn’t the usual he’d come to expect. Instead, it said, 

_Because of Agent Jason Gideon_. 

“She uh- She does that to remind you of the good you’ve done…” he mumbled by way of explanation. 

“I never put you in my book…” 

“Maybe you should..?”

The third week after Sarah’s death came their first trip back into the field and it seemed as if Gideon was beginning to find himself again, spearheading the investigation into a string of murdered college girls with all the presence he used to command. Gradually though, things began to unravel, and ultimately it cost both the suspect and an eighteen year old girl their lives. Both Gideon and Hotch were suspended after that, leaving the BAU flailing in the wind. 

Calliope remained in New York for her birthday, telling him she wanted to remain out of the way while his team, his family, needed him. If she felt neglected, she didn’t say it. Spencer didn’t courier his gift this year, holding onto the kintsugi bowl he’d bought with a determination that it would not be too long before he saw her again. 

He didn’t realise though, at first, that he would not see Gideon again. He trusted him. He’d always trusted him. He didn’t seriously consider something might be properly wrong until he did not return after his suspension period was up. When he stopped taking calls and when the photographs went missing from his office-

At first he thought the letter he’d found up at the cabin was a suicide note. It took a couple of reads before he realised the tone was not one of despair, not really. The despair had been replaced by something else, the beginning of a fragile hope that if he just got away from the world that had cost him the woman he loved he might find himself again. Sarah was gone, but he was still alive, and faced with the decision of whether to go back into the darkness or find a new path there was no contest, really… 

Sat clutching the envelope, badge and gun abandoned on the table, Spencer thought back to the conversation they’d had.

_“However you life your life, make sure you’re left with nothing to regret, Reid…”_

Sarah would undoubtedly always be Gideon’s greatest regret. 

Back at his apartment Spencer packed light, carefully wrapping the kintsugi porcelain in his clothes to protect it, then rummaged through his writing desk until he found the envelope he needed, slipping it into his breast pocket so he didn’t lose it. He sent a text to Garcia to report his movements without an explanation as to just why he was headed where he was, and opted to take the train, warranting it’d probably beat the odds on air travel this late in the day. 

He got into New York before midnight, possessively hanging onto his duffle to protect it’s precious contents as he navigated the subway down to Harlem, then continued on foot to Calliope’s building, pulling the envelope from his jacket as he climbed the stairs to her floor. At her door he slipped his thumb under the seal, tearing it open to tip the key she’d given him out into his palm, and took a deep breath before he let himself in. 

She was still awake, in her pajamas and sat amongst the cushions in her window with a book in her lap, looking up with a startled expression as the door opened. 

“Oh my God- Spencer, what are you doing here? Is everything okay?” She was getting to her feet as she spoke, abandoning her book on the window sill as he closed the door behind himself and pocketed the key, hurrying over to her and reaching to take both her hands as soon as he was close enough. 

“You are family,” he said breathlessly as she stared up at him, still winded from his climb up the stairs. “You are. You- you matter just as much as anyone else, and you’re not in the way, and- and I don’t care about the distance and I don’t care about what anyone else thinks and I don’t care if you- if you think maybe you have hangups- and this might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but I knew if I didn’t I would regret it, because who knows if I’ll get another chance? I need you to know- I-” 

He stumbled, Calliope’s lashes fanned wide as she stared up at him, completely taken aback by what was happening, her fingers clinging onto his tight. 

_Tell her. Tell her or live with that regret, because you might never have another moment like this again._

“Spencer..?”

“Calliope, I-” 

_TELL HER!_

“Calliope…” Deep breath. One, two- “I love you. I think I’ve loved you since Bethesda Terrace. I’m not sure, I- I told you, I’m not good at this. But I know for certain standing here right now that I love you. And I know it’s a lot, and I know we’re still figuring this out, and it’s not my intention to overstep in any way, but- I need you to kn-”

He never got any further than that. She was trembling as he caught her in the embrace, wrapping her up to hold her tight against his chest as she kissed him, stretched through her tiptoes, arms wound about his shoulders. Fingers wove deep into her hair, every strand spun platinum to him, his entire being poured into the kiss until she pulled away, stars still in his vision. Calliope trailed her lips over his cheek and jaw, Spencer not sure how much longer his legs would hold out as he touched his brow to hers, heart stopping as he heard her quivering whisper; 

“I love you, Spencer...” Another touch of her lips, softer, lingering, then, “Stay…” 

Eyes opened to find her looking back at him, clear blue irises incandescent as they reflected the light from the night outside the window. Had she really said she loved him, too? 

He nodded, both hands moving to cup her face, bowing down to kiss her. Stay. Yes. For an hour or a lifetime, or whatever he could get in between. Stay, knowing he loved her and she loved him and whatever happened there would be no doubt, no regrets for things unsaid.


End file.
